A Bowtie and Arrow
by bowtiesandredhair
Summary: Four months before the dreaded Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen is stumbled upon by a pair of strange individuals. But who else can the fire-haired girl and odd-smiling man rely on when they're helplessly stranded in the Seam?
1. Chapter 1

Peace. Wonderful peace of which no one can touch or tarnish. That's how it was every time Gale allowed me to drift off to sleep after an unsuccessful day out hunting. It was hot, but under the thick shade of trees, you could almost feel the freshest of breezes. The ground was soft, the air was cool, and for a moment I could feel myself drift off into the same sort of peace my father's voice would lull me into at night.

I feel Gale's steady breathing, and I know he's only lying down with me to help keep the illusion of it all. I could just hear his voice on any other day, reminding me that the fire wouldn't cease just because we dozed off under a bunch of dead trees. Peace wasn't the sap that would drip down to our side, and we'd quickly lick from the dirt before it stuck to each grain. Yet peace came like a cool breeze, and there were days he'd allow me to believe the heat would never kill it.

The truth is that nothing was ever peaceful. Not in my life or the many lives before me, and with the Hunger Games soon approaching, though they always are approaching too quickly, we are all more disgruntled than ever.

Four month away. It's not yet the anticipation, but the process of trying to tell myself that for now I shouldn't worry and I shouldn't think about it. But that only seems to make it worse. Every time I look at Prim, I think of it. Every time she talks about simple kid stuff, I think of it. Every time she brushes her soft hand against Lady, I think of it. It's even worse when she smiles, because in that divine innocence I can only see the horrors that might await for her and soon she'll be robbed of that. Not only do the Games force each district to send two children to fight and die, they gut out every sliver of peace any of us could ever have. That's why he sometimes lets me doze off. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, I feel that I can almost touch my father's face again.

All too quickly, there is a rustle in the woods and Gale nudges me conscious. His eyes are observing through the trees, and he firmly holds my arm in case we have to bolt at any second. For the most part, he'll drag me until my legs shake awake. Yet this time seems different. His eyes survey all around us, and I can tell he's waiting for another twig to break before he sets off running. But the quiet seconds pour through, and we remain still, the throbbing in our ears muffle out the sound of someone approaching.

"_Oh yes, hello!_" said a bright voice behind us.

Before I can even turn my head to see the man's face, I see Gale hurdling his body towards him, tackling him down to the ground. I hear the sound of a frightened yelp as I dash up to my feet. Gale is holding him still by his shoulders, and I see the look of terror on the man's face.

"_Run!_" Gale bellows back at me and before my mind can even registers how much the man looks like a surprised, innocent woodland creature in the clutch of a bear; my feet take off running faster than they can touch the ground.

My head glances back at them, and suddenly, I feel myself slam against something and I stumble to the ground. I stagger up as fast as I can when I hear the groans of a person breathe out from under me.

I pause for a moment to stare at the girl with hair as red as fire, but when she opens her wincing eyes, my mind slaps me back into a run. When I figure I'm far enough away, I slide under a patch of ferns and look back to where Gale is. I see his brute arms shaking the man, and the man lifts his quivering hands in front of his face. I squint hard to see, but I can guess the man is saying that he is harmless.

I catch the fire-haired girl slowly make her way to where Gale is, and I'm suddenly possessed to move closer, just in case they team up on him and he needs help. I reach behind my back, and groan to myself. My bow and arrows are still lying where I was resting.

"_Oi, _get off of him!" shouts the fire-haired girl to Gale, and I see him dart his head back to her and he pauses.

I silently move behind a large tree, and now I'm in better position to defend or attack, with a rock cradling in my palm. Although I'm not the best thrower, I knew the moment I saw the stone that I'd make it count no matter what.

Gale slowly loosens his grip, his eyes still holding the girl's stern gaze, and the man exhales a thankful sigh.

"_Ah, _now that is much better. None of the tackling and choking and yelling and threatening, but you are quite good at each one."

I see Gale look back to the man and he gives him a confused look. "Who are you?"

"All _this _for _that_?" He pleasantly smiles, and motioning inquiringly if Gale could get off of him, and reluctantly, he does.

The man somewhat springs to his feet in a joyful manner, and Gale flinches back as he reaches towards him for handshake

"Hello, I'm the Doctor." With a wide, friendly smile, he grabs the ends of the strange tethered cloth that's wrapped around his neck, and bounces on his toes. He points to the fire-haired girl, "This is Amy, and we're in need of some help, if you fancy."

The way he talks, if I was standing where Gale is, I would also share his confused expression.

"The _Doctor_?" Gale quietly repeats, and slowly glances to the girl as she walks up beside her companion.

There is something wrong with Gale, I have never seen him this nervous, and the man must sense it. He steps a bit closer to Gale to catch his attention, and he smiles that strange smile.

"Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you."

Almost immediately, the man nudges the fire-haired girl, "Say something encouraging." His whisper scolds her and her eyes silently scold back.

"You just said that we weren't going to hurt him, that's about as encouraging as it can get, yeah?"

As they continue to quietly argue, I'm the only one to notice Gale slowly slipping away. They both turn to watch Gale bolt down the hill, yet they don't pursue him. The pair look at each other, and in the moment it appears they're about to break out and scold each other, a twig snaps from under my foot, and their heads dart to where I'm hidden. Before I know anything, the man gives an awkward wave in my direction, as he pleasantly smiles at the bush.

"_Hello, I'm the Doctor! This is Amy!_"

The fire-haired girl immediately shoves her elbow in his side, and I hear another round of angry whispering, until finally she rolls her eyes at him and looks away.

It amazing how quickly his kind smile returns when he glances back at my direction, "Hello, yes, sorry about that. She's_ Scottish_. Quite impossible. But regardless of her, we need some help, if you'd be so kind."

I see her lean towards his ear and the expression on her face bled sarcasm, and his reaction confirmed it. This time their quiet banter is coupled with him shaking his arms in the air, just loud enough to be heard. "How do you expect us to ever get out of this godforsaken forest if you can't act_ feminine_ and _nurturing_! _Girls_ trust_ girls_! So will you please be a _girl_ so we can find the_ bloody_ TARDIS?"

She rolls her eyes at him and releases an exasperated sigh as he stretches the elastic bands that wrap around his shoulders. The fire-haired girl shuffles uncomfortably in place, and then her eyes stare blankly at me. I realize she must have finally found me under the cover, because her eyes suddenly soften. She stares for quite some time at me, and my mind starts to think of things she would say to lure me out from hiding. Among all of the trust-deeming words I think of, she doesn't choose either of them.

"We're as harmless as this moron's stupid. We really could use your help. At least tell us your name," He squints at her, silently telling her to add what nice people say, "_Please._"

And before I can even feel my held breath escape my lungs, I stand up past the thick, "My name is Katniss. And you're not from around here, are you?"


	2. Chapter 2

I'm taken aback as the man excitedly bounces in place and elbows the fire-haired girl. He tugs on the piece of cloth around his neck, and then slowly strolls up to me.

"Yes, hello." says his smile and he glances back to his friend and motions her forward. "It's nice to meet you, _Katniss_."

The strange inflection of my name leaves me a bit confused, yet there is such a look of excitement on his sweaty, dirt-covered face, that I can't help but believe the fire-haired girl's words of his innocence.

"We're a bit stranded, and have been for a while." He says softly, and as the hairless mounds under his forehead rise, I inadvertently produce a confused look.

She must have caught it, "Yeah, he has no eyebrows. If that's not anymore reason to believe his stupidity-"

"_Pond_." He shakes his head disapprovingly at her, yet she only shrugs. "I _am _brilliant."

I lightly smile as the fire-haired girl mouths "_Nope_" behind him, and he darts his head back at her and points an accusing finger.

Despite the voice in the back of my head, who sounds so much like Gale, and his words telling me to run, there was something…..different about the pair of them that I couldn't feel myself resist.

"All right…" I say quietly. "Y-You're weird and seemingly nice. I don't know what I can do, but if it's a place to rest for a bit, you can follow me."

A wide, childish smile spread across the strange man's face and he excitedly glances back to her, and she seems to humor him a thumbs-up.

"Thank you, _Katniss_."

How the fire-haired girl must've caught my buried confusion, I didn't know, but she speaks up my thoughts regardless, "Yeah, he also does weird inflections of names he likes. You'll start rollin' with it soon."

As I feel myself slowly start to lower my guard, I find myself listening to their footsteps, his are surprisingly light on his toes, while hers are steady. Though I appreciate their silence. For a few moments, I almost forget they're following me, until a quiet banter breaks out again, and I suppose the strange man, the "Doctor" stubbed his toes against a hidden stump. But soon it's just gibberish as the fire-haired girl hushes him.

I find it intriguing to witness though. I have spent most of my life in these woods, and I'm quite confident to say I know them like the back of my hand. To see how other people see my forests, it's strange. I catch a few birds in the corner of my eye, yet his pleasant gasp breaks my concentrations and sends my arrow way off. She shoves her elbow in his side, and they're set off bickering again. It's only until I glance back at them do they stop.

"_Sorry_." the Doctor mouths, while she rolls her eyes at him.

I motion them to stand still a moment, and I slide down a slope, slipping my arrows in an open tree cavity and feeding my bow beneath a pair of rocks. The two are somewhat startled when I quickly dart back up to them, yet I give them a reassuring motion forward.

It doesn't take long for us to reach the wire fence. I effortlessly maneuver through it, and I hear the sound of one of them swiftly following, and we both look back to him as he looks nervously at it.

"'Says 'High Voltage'." He mutters, rubbing his forefingers and thumbs together as he swallows anxiously.

The fire-haired girl grumbles impatiently, "C'mon, Doctor. You saw we weaved through it fine."

I watch as he grips his side absently, and his face somewhat saddens. With a sigh, he slowly slips his leg between a pair of wires and flinches out the other side, quickly dusting off his pants, and marching off with a brisk pace.

"What was that about?" I hesitantly whisper to the fire-haired girl, who is watching him walk and shaking her head at him.

"He's a bit cautious when it's just him." She says, and she gives me a quick glance. "Imagine if you didn't have your bow and arrow to hunt with. I s'pose it's a bit like that."

"He's a _hunter_?" I press my lips together when I realize how doubtful my voice sounds, but her laugh vindicates my questioning tone.

We both look to where he was walking, and we somewhat flinch as he's briskly walking back to us. I feel a bit uneasy that he looks immediately to me.

"Realized you have no idea where you're going?" asks the fire-haired girl, in something of a patronizing way.

His hand darts up to her face, "I'm not talkin' to you." To which she just scoffs. "I apologize, Katniss. Would you mind leading the way?"

There is that strange smile again. I have never seen anyone with that smile before. That sort of smile that could ask you to jump off a cliff, and you would and you would run back up to climb it just to do it again. I hated how I started to feel a bit flustered every time he smiled that way.

"Of course." I say quietly, and duck my head as I step in front of them.

Ten minutes or so of complete silence pass until we reach my house. It isn't until I see the crippled roof that the gnawing, sickening feeling of "What am I doing?" sets in the pit of my stomach. The frantic look of Gale's face and his shouting for me to run, and what do I do? I've brought the strangers to my own home. Who were they? What if they somehow belonged to the Capitol? Their strangeness certainly could suggest that. Plus, they talk a bit funny. Perhaps that's how people in the Capitol talk. And I've gone and led them to my home, carelessly risking my family's safety. _What if they were officers patrolling the forest for anyone who crosses the fence?_

My thoughts bury me and it isn't until the two are beside me, that I realize I must've stopped walking. I can feel my subconscious telling me to turn around or to lead them a different way. How could I be so stupid? What was-

The odd man somewhat leaps in front of my face and there's that smile again as he seems to be reassuring me. And it works. Whatever is there that that smile couldn't sway? Perhaps, I decide, the fire-haired girl.

He smiles and produces a silent clap, "This is your home?" His excitement is bewildering, and I bite my tongue before asking him if he sees the same place as I do.

That cynic inside of me watches his face in the corner of my eye as we walk closer to my house. District 12 consists of starvation, misery, and every aspect of the words 'plague' and 'suffering'. I feel a bit sick that I want the 'Doctor' to see it and for it to affect him negatively. There's no wonder contentment and the hollow feeling of 'happiness' isn't here. When people who have lived in it so long have become vicious wolves to shred the innocence apart. I wonder when it was that I became one.

I lead them to the side of my house, so that it blocks as much of the District's despair as possible. Yet before I can fully turn to them, I see Gale step out and his relieved look to see me quickly bleeds monotonous as he notices the strangers.

His eyes fixate on the Doctor, and suddenly an old memory comes back to me and I remember the day an adolescent bear crossed my path while I was out hunting. I already had my bow ready, yet the second it stepped in view, I hesitated. The bear began scraping its teeth against a tree, and I paused in watching the bark as it fell to the ground. My instinct twitched my arm back, and almost immediately as I felt the strain, the bear darted its head in my direction and stared at me. The way it stared, the way its eyes met mine. Strong, so very strong, just in its eyes. And yet there was something else. The tension in my arm slowly started to cause my bow to tremble, and that's when I see it. As its holding my gaze, a smaller bear waddled out of the bushes and began nibbling on the damp bark. The strength I saw, and yet it was just as much…..scared. Terrified, even. It looked at me knowingly, like it knew what I was about to do; take its life, and what its death would do to the cub. I slowly lowered my bow and backed away. Whatever voice had spoken to me, whatever hand gently led my arrow away from it, and I can't help but think of my father.

Gale stands, slowly drifting in front of me, and he stares at the Doctor in the same way that adolescent bear stared at me. I glance to the fire-haired girl, and she must notice because she slowly grabs the Doctor's arm and tries to back him away. Yet his innocence was almost humorous, how oblivious it made him.

He smiles widely at Gale, "Oh yes, hello! We met you earlier." And darts his arm to him for a handshake. Though at least he quickly picks up on the 'Get the hell out of my face' look and withdraws it. "It's all right, I'm the Doctor. I'm as safe as it gets."

The fire-haired girl blurts out a laugh and we all look at her as she shakes her head to herself. "Sorry, couldn't help it. Go on, then."

Gale leans over to me, yet his eyes don't leave the Doctor's, "What the hell have you done? Why did you-"

"We needed help." interrupts the Doctor softly, and as I watch his arms dangle anxiously at his side, I can tell he's trying to connect with Gale, to earn his trust, or at least some civil standing. But Gale is as uncompromising and steady as ever.

I lose track of time as I glance from Gale to the Doctor as they remain trapped in some sort of testosterone trance, and for a moment I just wish they would act like animals and tear each other apart to settle their issues. But wait, that would be bad and violent and bad. Oh, but I still find myself not caring, anything is better than this irrelevant stand-off.

As I look to the fire-haired girl, I'm surprised to find her to have drifted off. I turn my head slowly, and I catch her in the corner of my eye, slipping off to behind the house. With a quick check back to the pair of them, I drift away as well, and when I slip behind the corner of the house, I finally hear Gale's voice, questioning and threatening. I roll my eyes at his tone, yet suddenly I feel a flash of his protective uncertainty as I see the fire-haired girl kneeling next to my little sister and her goat. I keep my distance, and listen.

"Is Katniss your sister?" asks the fire-haired girl with a gentle, almost silk-like voice.

Prim nods, and continues combing her fingers through Lady's fur. There is something vulnerable in the way she speaks, something sincere. I can't help but wonder if the fire-haired girl sees someone in Prim. With that small smile that holds through every word Prim says and that look in her eye, she must.

The rough, commanding voice of Gale soon takes my attention, and I glance back to see the Doctor nonchalantly marching up to me and he pauses to look at the goat. That wide, child-ish smile again and I feel a faint one come upon me also just at the sight of him.

Gale grabs me and pulls me aside, "_Katniss_, you can't possibly trust them."

"_Oh well, you know I speak goat._" I hear the Doctor say proudly in the background.

"I think they're harmless."

He shakes his head, and shuffles anxiously, looking at me with that same look, "You better be careful, Catnip."

I nod, and without another word, he turns and walks away.

"_Well, she's very grateful of the care you've given her, Prim."_

The Doctor turns his head at the same moment I approach and he smile kindly at me.

"And to you, as well."

My defense mechanism immediately turns on and I give a shirking smile as I motion them to come with me. It's the one strange day my mother isn't sulking in the house. I glare at the cat, who hisses at me with more anger than usual, and listen to the rhythmic sound of our shoes knocking about the wood as we walk inside the house.

"This is about it." I say and toss my arms up at the rotted planks that hang out from the walls. I make note to fix it later, even though I know it's just grabbing a fist-size rock and trying to beat them back in.

"It's wonderful, Katniss. Really."

As I glance back at them, I see the fire-haired girl thoughtfully rubbing her thumb across a thin layer of dirt while her companion looks around almost wonderstruck. I swallow my cynicism. I know that smile and innocence will fade the longer he sees District 12. For now, I can't not let him walk naively.

"So ask us the questions, then." The fire-haired girl looks up at me and presses her lips together to muster some sort of smile.

I try my best to appear as innocent and confused as possible, but her knowing look tells me she would never buy it, despite him jumping already to that conclusion.

"Certainly, we're quite suspicious in itself." He stretches the elastic bands around his shoulders as his eyes trail across the ceiling. "You're very smart, Katniss, and not at all naïve. But," His green eyes fall on me, "I give you this gentle warning, it may be better to know nothing of where we're from or who we were before now. Explanations in this case are always confusing and induce a shrill of panic."

I swallow dryly and I feel a throbbing pulse run up my neck at the anxiety, "You aren't from the Capitol, are you? Are you some sort of….Peacemaker?" I whisper.

He bounces in place from excitement, "Oh, I like that! _Peacemaker._" He nods approvingly to himself. "Yes, I would say that's about right of us."

I look to the fire-haired girl, and she's shaking her head and silently scoffing at him. "I don't think that's exactly what she means, Doctor."

His head darts to her, "What? Is this some sort of dirty joke?" He somewhat hangs his head, "I never get those."

She sighs, "_No_. I think Peacemakers are like the strict police of each District, and they work for the Capitol."

Almost simultaneously we stare at her, a bit puzzled, him more so curious and me more so concerned.

"How do you know?"

The fire-haired girl shrugs, "That's what Prim told me."

"Okay," I comb the sweaty strands of my hair back and quietly sigh, "so you're not with the Capitol?"

The Doctor looked to her out of the corner of his eye for a decision, and as she shakes her head, he promptly joins in on the head-shaking of "No".

"Well then, who are you?"

The Doctor hesitantly opens his mouth to speak, yet shuts it and rubs his hands together. I find myself looking expectantly to each of them as they both stand awkwardly in front of me. My eyes dart to him when I see him open his mouth again.

"I'm the Docto—"

The fire-haired girl shoves the back of her hand into his chest, "We're time travelers."

"Oh, _perfect, _Amy." He grumbles, taking a few steps away from her as he seemingly pouts.

"I know he wanted to be all mysterious and '_It's better not to know_', but the truth is we're time travelers and once again, almost suspiciously again, something happened with his stupid—"

"_Sexy!_" He protests rather loudly.

Her hands fall on her hips and she shakes her head critically at him, "_Stupid _time machine and it gone off and went without us. And Doctor, being the _great _oncoming storm that he is, couldn't bother to actually find civilization, and most of all-" I reflect a moment, indecisive if I was glad to be hearing their bickering up close or if I prefer to have it back to only hearing distant angry-whispering. "_Most of all, Doctor, you ate the damn blackberries I found._"

I look to him and catch him shrug, "How was I supposed to know they were yours, Pond?"

The fire-haired girl brings her hands up to her face and stifles whatever fuming outburst must've risen, and she suddenly turns to me and smiles, albeit, crossly. "Le'mme ask Katniss about that, then."

He cringes at her, "Don't involve her—"

"No, no. As you said, Doctor, she's very smart and not at all naïve. I'm sure she could tell us which _clue_.-", I catch him mouthing a mock of her accent, yet I quickly glance back to her as she's on her way to the top of her rant. "—decides which side is right and which is the side of the_ four-year old!_"

"Well then, it's your side. I'm eleven-hundred and…" he pauses and his mouth contorts together as he seems to hope the 'and' wasn't heard. But as I expect, she never misses anything.

"_Four_." She says, crossing her arms firmly. "You're eleven-hundred and _four._"

The Doctor scoffs, "As if that matters. You're twenty-_four_."

I glance to her quickly and she somewhat leaps in place, "My _damn coat pocket! They were in my coat pocket,_" She flails her arms, "_and I was wearing the coat still!_"

He again shrugs, "You're making a scene, Pond."

"_And you didn't even eat them all_."

My head darts to him questioningly, "You didn't even eat them all?"

"_Nope!_"

"_Shut up, I told you they were too tart!"_

"_Four days, Doctor! Four days we were out there and the only decent thing I found—"_

"_Let it go, woman!"_

"—_were those damn blackberries and then you go and steal them, and when you think they're not 'good', you throw half of the pile in the river and the rest, you stomp on!_"

"_They were too tart! I disagreed with their flavor!_"

I watch as they each stiffen into the same defiant, headstrong pose, silently glaring at each other, and once more a memory flutters in my head. I see Gale's smirking face as he conceals something behind his back, and I know he must've made a very good kill. But the smirk is something else. As he stares at my defeated, sweat-covered face, he knows that my solo run of hunting that day failed miserably and I'm already bitter over it all. He remains quiet and I replay the moment of my arrow blatantly missing the first wild boar I had ever seen. I wasn't sure what, but I supposed something must have startled it. The second before I ask him, his arm hauls a rather large carcass in front of me, and my mouth drops at the sight of the wild boar. My eyes dart up to his face, and he's now quietly laughing as I take it in. It all finally registers for me.

"What's wrong, Catnip?" He says coyly, purposely trying to provoke me. "Surprised to see a wild boar? I thought you might be."

"_You _startled it." I murmur, and I look for the small scrap on its hind leg where the startling rock had hit it, and I feel a strange anger boil straight through to my hand.

Effortlessly and surprisingly quick, I swing my bow up at his face, yet he only ducks, now laughing heartily as he begins to run away.

"_You stole my kill!_" I shout at him, pulling back an arrow and letting it fly, and he flinches forward up a hill as it pierces the boar. "_That's my kill!_"

"_See ya' tomorrow, Catnip!_" He playfully yells back, stopping a moment to turn back and salute at me with that smirk.

It was one of those rare days where he acted so childish, and I only allowed it because he hardly allowed himself to be that way, so I allowed him those days. Knowing that the next time I would see him, he would once again have the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I blink out of my thoughts to see them both staring at me curiously, and I try to immediately push myself into my mindset as provider and caretaker.

"You both can rest here until you find your…." I pause to remember what it was the fire-haired girl said, lightly shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all, "time machine. But you have to stop fighting."

She sighs, and he strangely contorts his mouth together into only what I can assume is an ashamed pout, and they both reluctantly nod.

"Better watch out, then. Keep up that fiery attitude and you both might be forced into fighting in the _Games_." My nonchalant tone is quickly met with puzzled faces, and I can't help but scoff. "All right, I'm starting to believe your time traveler story, how have you never heard of the _Games_?"

The Doctor slowly smiles, "Are they….._entertaining_?"

I scoff again, and quickly weave a strand of hair behind my ear, "Anything but. If there's one thing that's closest to Hell, it's the _Hunger Games_."


	3. Chapter 3

I watch his face slowly sink as I tell them both of the Hunger Games. He picks a place on the floor to stare at, and not once do his green eyes seem to drift from it. I try to speak as gently as I can, but there is something in my chest, like a burning lead ball that is tearing up to my throat and the more words I try to string together nicely to spare him, the more I realize how much I'm not really trying at all.

The Hunger Games are an excruciating and scarring poison that we, as Districts, are forced to swallow and believe it to just be entertainment, and I feel myself slowly grow more and more content that I'm spreading that pain to him. The suffering feels like a big bowl of disgusting, impossible sludge that I vigorously pour onto his innocent plate, disregarding the evidence that perhaps he already has enough to begin with.

It's several minutes before I consciously realize I'm staring at him as I speak, and almost instantly, my eyes dart to the fire-haired girl, who sits solemnly, staring down at her hands. She seems to have an understanding of it, and yet appears to be lost in some sort of daydream. I can't blame her.

Suddenly, the Doctor stands up from sitting on the wooden stool and he slowly turns for the front door.

"We must find the TARDIS." He says very quietly, with his hands firmly on his hips and his head stiffly bent towards the floor.

The fire-haired girl quickly leaps after him in a riled manner, "You're just going to _leave_? These people are suffering."

His eyes glance at her with a look of amusement and yet also hurt, "What will you have me do?"

"You can figure out a way to help them. You can fight."

The Doctor scoffs, darting a hand behind his neck and scratching something that doesn't seem to itch. I suppose it was his attempt to reaffirm his control over some sort of irritability. He smiles bitterly, "This war has no victory, can't you see that?"

She looks at him in disbelief and shakes her head slowly, "When has that ever stopped you?"

"I have no TARDIS, no sonic, no.." His arms rub around each other self-consciously as he gently bites down on his lip from the frustration, "No coat. What do I have now?"

"You are still the same. You're the Doctor. No ridiculous knickknacks made you anything more. You have you, yourself, and..." I watch as she sighs, and anxiously picks at some sort of dried scab on her arm, "And you have me, Doctor. So just stop pouting. All you can ever do for yourself is try. Odds aren't in your favor?" I catch him shirk off her motherly tone, yet she takes a quick step around to him and ducks her head up to his face, demanding to be heard. "Then you shut up and you fight like hell until the scale is tipped. You fight 'til your bones break, because you're a fighter. Ridiculously dressed and childish mannerisms, but you're a fighter. You fight in different ways, maybe in better ways, but you fight regardless. You've fought for worse causes, more impossible odds than this. And right now, I'm just asking you to be ridiculous and try, not letting the uncertainty stop you. Hesitate you? Sure. But stop you? Never. That's when you need to be concerned on what you have and who you are."

I watch as the two of them look at each other a bit knowingly and regrettably. And I can't help but wonder if her words are heavier than truth, if they also hold a bleeding experience. Perhaps even a very recent one.

"So..." She mutters awkwardly as the quiet seconds had poured through, and she turns her head back away from him, her body twirling around to follow. "Just think about it."

There is a simmering silence that sifts through the room as I, the sole audience member to their obviously personal and private conversation, remain sitting in an uncomfortable state, torn between showing some sort of support for her speech or pretending I was so caught up in my own thoughts that I didn't even notice them. I find myself some place in the middle.

My eyes rest on the house that rests across from my home, and I thoughtlessly stare at the old man who sits, scraping his brittle teeth against a small bone. Once more I drift off into my head, though this time as mindlessly as ever, for it's only until my mother's frantic voice shakes me in my seat do I see her nervous face.

"Katniss." She places a timid hand on my shoulder, and once again I shrug off their fear.

"It's all right." I murmur, and place a firm palm on her face, hoping some sort of comfort finds her, despite me not particularly trying to comfort her myself.

I smile softly and give some sort of nod. "These are friends of mine." I say in a tone that borders between an unsure truth and an overlooked lie.

"Who are they?" She asks just beneath a whisper, and her knowing look, her look that asks me what friends could they possibly be, again I shrug off her practical fear.

I motion an arm towards the pair of them as they hesitantly remain still. "This is the Doctor." My hand outstretches towards him, and without a further hint, his childishly, trust-instilling smile spreads of his face.

"Yes, hello." He says in that same stifled excitement, clasping his hands together as he lightly bounces in place.

I watch my mother for a reaction, yet it's still that same paralyzed hesitance. My hand drifts to the fire-haired girl and my thoughts stutter a moment as I try and remember her name. Affiliating her as the 'fire-haired girl' wouldn't exactly make the abrupt introductions any easier. Although her eyes are on my mother, politely, with a kind smile on her face, I can tell she sees right through me.

Without another quiet second, she slowly steps forward and reaches out her hand, "Hello, Mrs. Everdeen." She says in that same voice I heard her speak in with Prim. "My name is Amy, and I couldn't thank you enough for your daughter's hospitality."

I'm sure all three of us were taken aback by her formal, but believable attitude, and as my mother hesitantly gives her her hand, I'm surprised and yet not at all that it worked. It's just another sign for me that they're not from the Capitol. And if they are, then fooling us is entirely earned.

Without any more than quietly telling me she'll be in her room, my mother leaves us. I lean back against the wooden stool thoughtfully, and suddenly I realize how dinner is still out of my hands and roaming in the woods. I sigh to myself. And again the fire-haired girl, Amy, catches it before I can hang my head.

"Could you take me?" She asks, a bit excitedly and it's the first time I see the Doctor's childish smile on someone else's face.

I try to sound as dumb as possible, only to ease myself with her knack of reading my mind, "Where?"

"I know findin' us wasn't exactly the plan you probably had for today, but if you'd willing, I would really like to learn."

Inadvertently, I narrow my eyes, and she lightly nods to herself at my confusion, though patiently. "To hunt."

"To hunt?" The surprised words escape the Doctor's mouth before they fill up in mine and we both look to him as he starts to awkwardly laugh. "Oh? You were serious, Pond? You want to hunt? Like...kill things and let them be dead and then..." He loses his train of thought as he mimes skinning an animal.

"Oi, you don't think I could hunt?"

He scoffs at her and continues with a quiet chuckle, "No, no. I'm sure you're quite the archer, Pond."

"Stop calling me that if you just want to add a layer of condescension. Katniss," I lightly flinch as she somewhat shouts my name in emphasis. "-is the sole supplier here and I thought I would help. Though I suppose your plan was just looking for the TARDIS during the day and crashing here at night." His eyes squint as he tries to sense the trap she's laid for him if he agrees, yet it's too late and she leaps on his nod. "Well, then, I hate to add reality to the mix, but we need to help out to earn our rent, yeah?"

I try to lightly interject as soothingly as possible, "It's all right, I don't mind-"

Immediately, her finger darts up to my face as she's caught in a staring contest with the Doctor, "No, Katniss. Don't have to be polite. It's very sweet, and yet very irritating." Her face turns to me for less than a second and with not one more, her eyes shoot back to match the Doctor's, "Not you. Him."

I slightly flinch when she darts her head back at me, "Well, you are taking me."

"I—"

"You're imposing, Amelia." says the Doctor sternly, but I'm not surprised that it doesn't disarm her.

"Imposing would be to come in here—"

"Oh, _please_."

"G-Guys—"

"And eat their food and sleep in their—"

"We'll sleep on the floor!"

"Fine, then! Use their blankets-"

"I don't need a blanket!"

"We have plenty of spare blan—"

"Yes, you will! You get cold easily—"

He lets out a dramatic gasp, "I do _not_!"

Her mouth drops in amusement, "_Oh, _no? Then I must have just imagined the past four nights of havin' to cuddle with you for warmth because you complained and shivered from being too _damn _cold!"

I watch as the Doctor shakes his head disapprovingly and quickly turns away, "I'm not justifying that with an answer."

The energy I must have to just keep up with the two of them. I can only seem to find it in a stifled anger as I bring my fist down hard against the wooden table. Immediately, their heads dart to my direction and I quickly swallow for my most commanding voice.

"There's an old bow under the back of the house." I'm addressing the fire-haired girl. "You can go and get it and we'll go out hunting and I'll teach you how to use it." She nods somewhat awkwardly and slowly drifts out the front door. I look to the Doctor, who looks at me as if he's impressed with me bossing her around. I lightly shake my head at his faint smirk, "And you, Doctor."

Suddenly a wave of innocence sweeps over him, but I disregard it. To me, he resembles one of the Colson twins when I would see their mother scold them for something they both did. Once the other was punished and there was a pause in the mother's voice, the other would think they got away with all of it and immediately plead not guilty when it was their turn. "You stay here and clean up in any what way you can." I reach behind me and retrieve a stick with a small bundle of hay tethered around the bottom. A broom. A poor man's broom. Yet in District 12, it really is just a broom, I suppose. I toss it to him and he tries to swat it from the air, yet he fumbles and it hits him square in the face. I stifle a smile at the amusement the fire-haired girl would've gotten from it as he squeezes his nose between his fingertips.

"I'm quite the cleaner." He says with a nasally voice, looking to me with his hairless brows rise in protest. "Call me the Dirt _Führer. No. Don't call me that. Call me the Doctor. I'm the Doctor."_

Again, that energy that's only fueled successfully by anger takes over me, and I let the fire-haired girl possess me for a moment. I stiffly stretch out my arm from my side, "I don't care what you want to be called, just _clean_."

He pauses a moment and pouts, "That sounded too much like her."

I shrug him off as I quickly stomp past him, though I know he's entirely right and I already begin to internally abuse myself for bossing around _anyone_. I have to tell myself that it's just taking charge. It's just what has to be done. That's what I've always told myself.

In the corner of my eye, I see the Doctor silently lunge down for something, and by the time I turn, he already is dusting off the tobacco pipe in his palm.

"_Oh!_ Wherever did such a _beauty_ come about!" He shoots me an ecstatic look and returns his attention to it.

"Where did you find that?" I ask, inadvertently with a stern tone.

"It was under the wardrobe." He says absently, and he slowly smooths his palm across the chamber to the stem, entirely captivated. I watch him quietly for a few moments, and I replay the last time I saw that pipe.

It wasn't my father's. He didn't really like to smoke and my mother abhorred it. I can barely remember, the memory as caked with dirt and worn and old as the very thing I find myself staring at, focusing on.

Uncle. It was my uncle's? No. But I think that's what my father had told me when he snuck the pipe in the house and I accidentally stumbled upon it in his coat. I was young. Very young. I can't exactly remember how old I was, the moment is decrepit in my mind so I can only assume it was at least ten years. I had fed my hand into his coat pocket in search of a funny-shaped coal he found, and that's when the bulge fell into my palm and I fished it out. A wooden pipe and my father rushed to my side to swipe it before my mother came out of the room. He kneeled in front of me and put a finger over his lips. And later that night, he took me and sat me in his lap. He made me promise not to tell her, but he told me how there had been an accident at the mine that day, and how one man saved the entire crew, including my father. His name was Cleaster Welson. He was an orphan and had no siblings. My father told me how strong and brave he was, and that he considered him as his friend. No. A hero. He stopped a wall from collapsing with his bare shoulders until each man could run to the shaft. He held up the falling earth, my father said.

When they reported the accident to the Peacekeepers, my father watched them claw his belongings into a leather bag, to sell off for the company. The moment they turned their back, he ran and grabbed the first thing his hand wrapped around. A carved tobacco pipe.

He told me he took it so that Cleaster Welson wouldn't die a statistic or a mistake. He said he believed, as he placed it in my small hands, that keeping something from that man's life kept his memory alive. And a hero deserves at least that. I don't remember seeing that pipe since. I had forgotten about it.

"It's a good thing she's so take-charge."

I finally register his murmur, and utter some sort of inquiry. Though by the absent look on his face, I don't think he even notices if I'm still standing here. He continues anyway, almost quietly as if he is intending to talk to himself. "Because if she wasn't she wouldn't notice she's taking all the charge and that means I can do some exploring around here without her getting in the way."

I quickly shake myself from the memory completely and it's easier than I expect. "So you're the brain and she's the muscle?" I ask with a faint smirk on my face.

"Yes, precisely." He smiles pleasantly and it's then I'm reminded again how strange and innocent he is and then how disappointed I am for him not reacting in that frantic manner that leaves him stuttering for a correction. He goes on, "Two parts of a whole, it'd be impossible to function without the other."

With the pipe's stem gently coddled between his teeth, I internally countdown to the moment he'll thoughtlessly inhale. And it comes as soon as my eyes narrow.

A gasping breath bursts from his mouth and he leans over, coughing intensely. I sit against the wooden stool as he unknowingly hangs his head in the very mixture of dirt, dust and coal that shot to the back of his throat to begin with.

I shake my head as he continues coughing. "Why would you inhale?"

"Lost in the moment, I suppose." He replies hoarsely, wiping a welled tear from his eye. "Where's Amy?"

I'm not sure what came into his head that had him randomly spurt out the question, or that made him leap out of the house as fast as I did, but I knew what the Peacekeepers would see the moment they saw her. We cautiously come around the back of the house, and I'm surprised to see the back of Gale's head directly behind the fire-haired girl's.

"What are you doing?" I stomp in front of them and I catch a glimpse of a knife pulling away from her neck.

Gale backs away from her and lightly shakes his head, "I had to know-"

She must have read my expression, and immediately she takes a step in front of me to catch my attention, "And I told him and everything's fine."

"_Oh_, Amy." groans the Doctor. "You just tell _everyone_, don't you? There's nothing wrong with just being mysterious."

Gale lunges and takes the Doctor's arm in his squeezing palm, and he yanks it towards him. "What you call 'mystery' I call suspicion and that gets you killed here. If you want allies you have to earn them. "

"Yeah, I think jumpin' me from behind and puttin' a knife to my throat makes us well-acquainted." The fire-haired girl says wryly, and I watch as she gives Gale the same protective look of which he's giving the Doctor. "If we wanted you dead or wanted you suffering, don't you figure you would've been already?"

"Threatening them trustingly." murmurs the Doctor to himself with a faint intrigue on his face. "That's odd."

To what I imagine would set him on the offense again only lowers his weapon and reluctantly backs away. I see something strange in Gale's eyes, and for a moment I think it's a blend of nervousness and embarrassment. Something I can't remember ever seeing before. It's almost as if he's flustered.

"So what's your name, then?" asks the fire-haired girl in a commanding tone, her hands strongly place on her hips as she has some sort of unimpressed expression.

He cringes at her and glances away, shaking his head, "Gale Hawthorne."

"Well, nice to meet you, Gale." Her hand darts up to the Doctor and his mouth contorts back into silence as he was about to, I figure, exclaim how much he liked Gale's name, or at least repeat it in emphasis. "Since you seemingly trust me more than him," She shoots a smug look at the Doctor's face and he quietly scoffs, "He'll be your buddy for the day, yeah?"

Gale looks to her in protest, yet she quickly dismisses it, "Unless you want to leave a man you don't trust in your girlfriend's house?"

"Take him to the Hob." I blurt out, just to bury what she said and how incapable I am with even hearing it. I give him a nod when he looks at me and I quickly look away from him. I feel my skin faintly sting, but even more that I didn't deny it as I normally would've. I suppose it was the reaction Gale gave that stopped me. I remember one moment where I was accused of being his girlfriend and my denial shot out faster than a heartbeat and a tad too angrily. But I still have a snapshot of Gale's face in my head. It was quiet and accepting, allowing me to react however I did. I have refused to walk down whatever analyzing that told me exactly what his reaction meant.

But now, as the accusation is said, he responds faster than I can think to. With an almost frantic shaking of his head, and his mouth opens to add words to it, but I speak instead. And he seems somewhat hurt when it's not a denial, but a desperate subject-switching stutter.

It's the sound of my voice that sets his face back to its protective, volatile expression and he stares at me bitterly. I see each fear-filled question that's running through his head, and I can only hope that I respond to them with my own eyes.

_What if he's an undercover Peacekeeper?_

_He's not. He caught us in the woods, he would've called someone by now._

_Unless he's waiting us out for more._

_You really think he's that devious?_

…_.It's possible._

_I'll take the brunt of it if you're right._

_That's what I'm afraid of._

_If you don't trust him, trust me._

After a long pause, Gale reluctantly nods and looks to the Doctor, "Fine. You can come with me."

That same, dumb-looking smile spreads on his face and he lightly bounces on his toes, "Brilliant!" He looks to the fire-haired girl and she shakes her head at his stupid grin. "I get a chance." He says pleasantly.

"Don't blow it on being you." She says. "Y'know, _extra charming _and _clever_, that sort of thing."

As the pair of them are caught in another duel of rambling banter, Gale and I stand mute to it as I try to comfort him without words. Though the way he looks me in the eye, I feel myself slightly shift into his perspective. How defensive, protective, and perhaps, I wonder with that parting, reluctant nod, volatility. What must he be feeling as he looks at me? I suppose I can only ignore my curiosity and thoughtlessly continue as the fire-haired girl and I march away from the house. I glance back at Gale and I wonder what he's thinking and even more so, what he's considering.


	4. Chapter 4

_Though the way he looks me in the eye, I feel myself slightly shift into his perspective….What must he be feeling as he looks at me? I suppose I can only ignore my curiosity and thoughtlessly continue as the fire-haired girl and I march away from the house. I glance back at Gale and I wonder what he's thinking and even more so, what he's considering._

* * *

><p>I glance back to catch her eyes, but there's nothing there that is familiar. Not even an understanding of my concern. <em>No. Not concern. Fear<em>. Fear for this being the first time I see her so naively trusting in strangers. Katniss Everdeen, the girl I have known better than any other person in my life, stood in front of me with a face, laxed and unassuming, I have never seen before. She looked at me as if I was the one on the border of betrayal; the suspicious and ridiculous outsider. That all of the years of trust and partnership was nothing. That I was nothing. Simply someone of lesser worth, whom she quickly left for something 'more' the first chance she got.

All of the thoughts drag me into a pool of bitterness, yet I'm only partially oblivious when the strange man steps closer to me. He seems to try to silently nudge me into moving with his expectant look that's coupled with a dumb smile. I am to take him to the Hob as I trade for the squirrels and rabbits that I had caught without her. I don't believe I would ever admit that I hunt with less vigor without her around. But I suppose I do all right on my own.

Without a word, I start to walk down the dirt street and like a lost pup, he promptly follows after. The long silence ensues as I stare straight ahead and concentrate on feeling entirely alone, yet he seems to be eager to establish some sort of bond between us. Maybe that red-headed girl was right. I immediately block out the fact that I threatened to kill her, and focus entirely on what she said. Though he doesn't let me have any more seconds alone for my thoughts.

"Mind if I ask what the 'Hob' is?" His voice is hesitant, though confident, and altogether friendly. And something else. Oh, yes. Annoying.

"No." I say sternly and give a warning side-glance as he tries to walk directly beside me. "I'm not taking you there."

He pauses in following me, but I don't stop to check on him. All too soon he's jogging back up to me and in the corner of my eye I catch him nodding approvingly.

"Good on ya', mate." He says in a forced, deep tone. "Can't have those girls bossing us around."

"So you're with her, then?" I utter quickly, despite my better judgment. Though my blurting doesn't seem to even be noticed, as my voice remains buried in uncompromising disgruntlement. And I luck out. He smiles hopefully at the chance to discuss _something _with me, I figure, and I catch him turning around to walk backwards as he speaks.

"Well, not really." He says thoughtfully.

His ignorance of what I'm asking almost rivals my own ignorance of why I'm asking. I don't technically care and I definitely don't want to hear about him endlessly ramble about however he views his relationship with the red-headed girl. But no. I don't care either way. Let me clarify, it is my best chance to unveil whether or not they are spies for the Capitol. Yes. That is my intention.

"I suppose though." His doubtful murmur has me scoffing at his nonchalance.

"You either _are _or you're _not_." I say critically, and resume ignoring him.

He clasps his hands together, continuing to effortlessly walk backwards down the street, "It's not something that I preferably concern myself with. I mean, technically I am _with _her. We travel together. I would say that's the extent of it."

I pause a moment, torn between dedicating myself to ignoring him as I silently hate him for every strange thing he does or to decide to briefly bully him for a bit. At least, I think, I could do it without him acknowledging it. He'll just see it as 'bonding' and as innocent as Katniss says he is, I'm sure I could even have some fun with it.

"Something's gotta be there." I say at last and his lower lip sticks out for a confused pout. "You spend that much time with only one other person, it's impossible not to have something."

"Curious." He murmurs, staring as if he couldn't be more intrigued with me and I barely glance at him for a second. "If that's true, then, you must have some sort of repressed feelings for Katniss."

_Boom. _He strikes the nerve that I have left so blatantly in the open, practically asking him to take an obvious stab at it. Before I can even think, I thoughtlessly lunge for him and grab at him by the collar. Internally smiling at the genuine surprise and fear in his eyes, all as he tries to bury it in some strangeness.

"You don't talk about her." I say in a low voice, and it's then we both realize how much I tower over him. I could really do some damage. And I wish I could say I don't deeply consider it.

Suddenly, I push him out of my hands and stomp past as he stands there, dazed and despite returning to my thoughts, I hear his quiet uttering perfectly.

"Humorous." His footsteps pad through the dirt and he's back to the corner of my eye. "I could say the same thing to you."

I cringe and glance back at him, to which he gives me a knowing look. "I don't know what you're talking about."

My voice is convincing and yet not at all and immediately I concern myself with how transparent I've been seen as by others. Specifically Katniss. Or rather, especially the red-headed girl.

"It's all right, mate." I can just feel the condescending pat on my shoulder. "I may be dumb, but I'm not ever stupid. Well, though sometimes. 'Cause it does happen. Though Amy claims more times than not. Which is ridiculous. She's so much more thick than I am. Thinking that blackberries are all right even though they're too tart. And oh, one night she stole my clothes as I was out bathing in some lake. It took me six hours just to find my bowtie. She had climbed a tree and tied it around the highest branch and a vicious family of squirrels were very territorial of it." He tugs on the ends of the cloth I assume is his 'bowtie'. "Though I got back at her. Silly ol' Pond, that girl." It's now I catch the forced manner of which he's speaking and I give him a faint glare. Underneath his innocence, I see a smirk. He's talking about her to get a reaction and I'm slightly anxious that I'm giving him one. "She used some jagged rock to carve up some spears. Thought she could get some meat with them, or fish, or some ridiculous thing like that. Though after that bowtie-stealing incident, I took the spears while her back was turned and threw those silly sticks in the lake!" His wide grin is borderline childish and he silently claps his hands together. "_Boy, _she was hot."

In the view of myself, I didn't react. Or whatever bumbling reaction, I stifle it beneath my mask of indifference. Yet the way he looks at me, he catches something in a place of nothing and he smiles. "I mean, angry."

"I know what you meant." I say too quickly. "But I don't get your point."

"My point?" He asks, amused. He stares off thoughtfully as it peters out. "I don't think I have a point, quite honestly."

I release an exasperated sigh as we turn a corner; halfway to my house, "I think it thrills you."

"What?" He's faintly smiling, and I know I'm right in some aspects. The way some guys act, I've seen the misery of the District and the hatred for the Capitol take 'good' men and provoke them into uncompromising bullies. It's destroyed some of my closest friends. Which is why I've always drifted more towards Katniss. When I met her, she was blunt, and a bit cold, but she still is who she was. A fighter. A survivor. Selfless, and strong. There are many small-time gangs around District 12, not really a threat, but they're there all the same and I remember the pointed remarks each guy started with before the fire caught him and he was lost to the ruthlessness and cruelty. My instinct is telling me that this stranger must be a good man, and yet, I can't shake the sense that he must be the worst.

"Behaving in a way you normally don't." I respond flatly. "Behaving brashly in an unknown environment with volatile strangers, are you really that bored?"

"Ah, Gale. So perceptive." He says almost proudly. "Truth is, matter-of-factly," He pauses and brings a finger to his lip, and he mouths 'matter-of-factly' with a giddy expression. "You're a strong young man who isn't easily bought, therefore I thought of a theory in which I poke you in a few personal matters upfront," He pokes his two forefingers through the air at me as he speaks, "so when I act as I am, you'll start to trust me because your subconscious will sense that I've changed."

I finally allow myself to stare at him and my eyes narrow suspiciously, "That's not a very good plan. And why would you tell me that?"

His face mimics mine, "I suppose I shouldn't have. I don't have much experience with manly men and manly men boundaries."

"That's strange." I murmur, and I shoot him back a stern expression that's fueled from the sliver of adrenaline I find when the snarky thought shoots up in my head. "I would think all your experience would be with men."

Another confused pout and my bitterness flares up again for his unwavering innocence. "Well, I suppose I don't have much experience with either gender." He pauses a moment, "Except goats."

"But they aren't a gend-Goats?" He smiles at my doubtful tone.

"Yes, goats. Kids. Oh wait. Kids. Like actual little kids, I've experience with them."

"Okay, I don't think that means what you think it means." I reply gruffly.

The stranger patiently sighs, "Kids like me. I like kids. Tiny humans, love some tiny humans."

I shake my head as a part of me grows tired of my failing attempt to emasculate him. "Don't say that too loudly."

"Why?"

Suddenly, my legs stiffen without my consent and I pause, staring at the worn, rotted door of my house. My arm lunges for his collar and I pull him in. "Listen, you're a stranger here. Just because Katniss has decided to be…" I try to stop myself, but I fail to find another word that fits. "_stupid, _and trust you, I _don't_. And no one else will." I shove him out of my grip and hesitantly stomp towards the crippled porch. I glance back at him and he stands there in a stiffened sadness for some time as he seems to be pondering something.

"Bet not." He suddenly utters and somewhat leaps up after me with his hairless eyebrows raised.

"What?"

"I bet I can get one other person to trust me." He replies confidently, and reaches to tug on the ends of his bowtie.

I scoff and my head lightly shakes, with my lips bitterly pursed together, "Who?"

He nods his head in the direction of my house, towards the boy running outside the front door to greet me. My 12-year old brother. And suddenly, there is no longer a doubt in my mind that whoever this stranger is, he will bring only suffering, and misery and he will do it in the same manner of which he reaches his hand out to the dirt-smeared face of my little brother, carelessly and obliviously. There is simply one thought that is throbbing in my head, and I feel myself torn between loathing the stranger as he purposely provokes me into brash actions of defense or to despise Katniss. I settle for a bit of both. And as I watch Rory hesitantly greet the stranger, I swallow a sickening hatred that has me wishing that wherever Katniss is in the forest, that a Peacekeeper would find the pair of them and punish her for her foolishness. Wherever she is, I stand here, shaking inside from the fear for my family, hoping that somehow she'll suffer and in that, she'll realize how we're all hanging on by the skin of life, and she just invited a lion inside our home.

As I reluctantly lead the stranger in to meet my three young, innocent siblings and my nervous, but polite mother, I force myself to decide if either he or Katniss is to blame, and how I can face them for it. For a moment, as the stranger's voice is kind and fascinated and believable to earn the trust of practically all four of them as he captivates them with his personality, I stare off out the window and my thoughts mutter some sort of bitter remark that I hope to say to Katniss' face. Though despite it, my fist tightening with this helplessly, I believe she hears me.

_It's him or me._

* * *

><p>For some reason I can't really explain, Gale's voice comes in my head and I dart back to look towards the Seam. I can almost feel him, uneasy and slipping, and my resolve for ignoring his realistic concerns is slowly dwindling in the pit of my chest. What have I done? I look to each house, each family, and I try to focus on each individual to fuel this. Each person I'm endangering and I allow all of the paranoia to feed and sicken me and harden my eyes. Two people for the risk and cost of our stability, albeit, suffocating stability. And for what? Two strange, impossible, suspicious people.<p>

My hand subconsciously tightens around my bow, and I feel someone inside of me slowly turn to the fire-haired girl as she staggers up a steep hill. She's rather agile, but unsuspecting and all it would take is one good shot. My breath exhales silently, sparing a moment to picture her as a red fox. Threatening and uncompromising, acting only in instinct, how long would I pause if I saw one preparing to kill Prim? If I saw it even near her, approaching from the grass? Perhaps not even baring its teeth, but I can just imagine it crouching and I contemplate if I would hesitate. As quick as it would take to load my arrow, it'd be dead.

I'm captivated in the moment. The sound of the arrow sliding from my sheath, the creaking bow, the string pressing firmly against my lips, and that indescribable second when the world stops and the heart beats and death flies from my arms. I never thought I relished it; the profound control. I am master. The taste and smell of blood. My body stiffens without my knowing and my bow is drawn, how the demon possesses me with my own encouragement and yet without my consciousness. The fire-haired girl sharpens in my sight and the tip of my arrow is strained directly at her. I'm not sure how long this stand-off has been, but I'm made uneasy by the unmistakably calm expression on her face in the moment she turns around and stares. As if she's lulling me to release, wanting it.

"Katniss." She says quietly, her eyelids fluttering with her voice, and she slightly tilts her head towards my bow. "Are you all right?"

I can't speak. He's whispering in my ear. _Do it. Release the arrow. Protect them. _My lips press together and my eyes close in acceptance of the choice, already predetermined, already justified. I swallow, and the heavy pump of my heart echoes inside my hollow chest. My arrow leaves me and my bow follows the same way; clattering to the ground, powerless and inanimate.

_His voice_. Whose voice was it? No. It wasn't who I first thought. It wasn't the calm, deep, kind voice of Gale Hawthorne. As the fire-haired girl hesitantly walks up to me and places her hands on my shoulders, the voice whispers back in my head. _Kill her. _The voice of President Snow.


	5. Chapter 5

I have heard his voice before. Somewhere between the whispering nightmare that stirred the night my father died and the constant broadcasts that crackle through the small, partially-broken television in our house. It seems no matter where you turn or which district you live in, you are exposed to the ivory hair and the slow walk and the cooling voice. And you know it like the strange pattern of faded freckles on the back of your hand. Or the burn scar of a severe accident; never forgotten. The President of Panem, with a name of something delicate and pure and healing. But he is none of these things.

It seems every time I close my eyes from his scattering figure and crackling voice that struggles to deliver its impact through the grey-ish static of the television, I can only see him as one thing. He is there, standing in the shadows, beckoning me to follow as I see the reflective knife cradled in his palm. The faint splotches of blood caught on his fingerprints, and his bright, bright snake-eyes narrowing at me. He is the enemy, I thought. I know this and have always known this. He is the wolf clothed in wool. As I watch the fire-haired girl from behind my trapped mind, I know President Snow will be the one to kill us all. Despite the innocence in me saying that no matter what, he'll never touch me. He's a figure on the screen and a demon in my nightmares. All I have to do is turn it off and wake up.

"Katniss."

A distorted mixture of his voice and hers trickles through my ears and I swallow as my trembling hands find my bow and arrow on the ground. I feed my arm through and the bowstring cradles against my shoulder. Subconsciously, I twirl an arrow between my fingers and I instantly walk past her and I head my way up the steep hill. The best thing I can do is ignore. Because the truth is so much more than she believes it is. So much more than I even think it is. And the sickening feeling is too much right now.

Clearing my mind, I load my arrow and wait. The fire-haired girl has reluctantly followed me into the thick of the woods and I can feel her eyes on my neck as she tries to study my movements. I realize how horrible a mentor I am. My uncompromising hate for the naïve has ravaged me into someone who will push down the weak and despise them for not knowing they have no choice but to be strong. I won't teach her, I think. I won't pass the torch that my father passed to me, especially not to her. I stand in a readying position to either attack or flee, and I'm so caught up in my festering anger that I've lost all sense.

A sudden rustling in the low bushes and my arrows flies from my grip, piercing into a small bird. That'll do, I suppose. My legs frantically attempt to keep me from tripping as I thoughtlessly leap down towards it to fetch it from the dirt. I turn back and motion towards the fire-haired girl as she mimes my movement with releasing the arrow and she awkwardly smiles when she realizes I've caught her mimicking.

I press my thumb into the bleeding wound of the bird, and I turn around to her and swipe it across her face, leaving two crimson stripes under her eyes.

"What was that?" She asks quietly, and remains surprisingly still as I stuff the bird into a small leather bag that's tethered to my waist.

I can't bring myself to words, so I just quickly glance at her and then march off into the heavier woods. "It's sort of an initiation mark." I say, but to myself I tell a different story. A lie that she smells too much like human and not of the woods. True, there is a faint smell on her, and I wouldn't be surprised if all it took were the animals to take a few quick sniffs to detect someone unfamiliar and stealthily hide away before we approach. That's my logical reason for it. But the fainter, more sentimental reason is…. the first day.

I position myself behind a wide trunk and I lean against it thoughtfully, replaying the memory of my first day of hunting. Snares, arrows, a modest duet, mimicking birds and a proud, heavy hand on my head from the man with a bearded smile. My father demonstrated the silk-like precision of archery and he plucked up a small bird and knelt to me. He pressed his thumb in the wound and wiped the blood against my cheeks.

"_What was that_?" I remember the quiet sound of my small voice.

"_Just a little tradition._" says my father.

I sigh. Ever since he died, whenever I try to walk down memory lane and replay each moment with him, I can never find his voice. Like it's gone from me, lost forever and there's nothing more frustrating. His face is faint, and it fades when I try to focus, but his voice is gone completely, so as I try to remember, I'm almost dragged back to forget. Though it's something I just ignore and I close my eyes again. I lie to myself, and pretend it's still untouched.

"_It just means you're my fledgling, Katniss." _Though I can still smile at his words. "_You're not quite a bird yet, but you're not __not __a bird. Almost though. You have to stretch your wings first, my dear._" He smiled and placed a hand on my shoulder, pulling me in for a hug. It was years until I questioned what that hug meant. For a moment, I wonder if I had felt brokenness in my father. Almost as if he was heartbroken or hurting of what I had to become to survive our life and he couldn't protect me from that. And it all makes me somewhat glad he died when he did. He never got to see his daughter, his fledging turn into _this_.

"_Katniss?_" Her voice hides behind the sound of crunching leaves and I swiftly turn and my arrow soars into the air and pierces a small rabbit. I stand silent as it fumbles through the bushes, trying to run away as the arrow had caught through its leg. I think I would have preferred to miss it completely, as it pants heavily and squeaks desperately. It's such a runt, that I feel the fire-haired girl breathing on the back of my neck; emotional and pitying. I reach back into my sheath and send another arrow into its neck. She exhales deeply as I pick it up, slowly pulling out the death shot and I turn back to her and lift up the carcass to her face.

"You squeamish?" I ask.

She stares at it for a bit, and looks at me innocently, "No, not really. Though I don't really know, I suppose." Her eyes drift back to it. "Haven't been all that much around blood."

The thought of that kind of innocence, I release something between a scoff and a laugh, which only brings a smile on her face, and without warning, I toss it to her and she catches it, but pauses to grimace as it lifelessly dangles in her hesitant grip.

"Here." I say, and I reach to my waist and pull out a small knife. "Skin it."

"What?" Her eyes widen. "Y-You mean like…."

"Got to start somewhere." I say and I lift the knife to her hand. "You want to stab the blade just below the skin, then just carve it off."

She silently gulps, but her hand still moves to take it. I have to admit, though not out loud, as her face seems to turn pale just from the thought of it and the helpless, frozen stare of the rabbit, she still reaches for the knife. Whatever doubt, even past the voice that still whispers for me to take it and slit her throat, she's sincere. And innocent. I give her the least amount of credit that this is no act. She is genuinely sickened and disturbed. As much as I want to continue watching her hands tremble as she tries to swallow and thoughtlessly do it, I pull my hand back just as she reaches and I tighten my grip around the knife.

"Not yet." I say.

A wave of relief is quickly blanketed with hollow confidence. "Oh? Are you sure? I could've—"

"See one. Do one. Teach one." I say monotonously and then I look to the rabbit and delicately plunge my knife just below its side. "It's not entirely bloody. The skinning process, I mean. If you get right under the thin layer that holds the fur, it'll come off rather beautifully."

"Beautifully." She murmurs and I glance up to catch her still keeping the terrified creature's gaze.

"It's about precision. My father used to say that if you can skin a rabbit without cutting into the deep flesh, you'll have no problem killing it cleanly with a bow." The moment I finish stripping it of its warmth, I realize what exactly I said, and I beat myself for even mentioning my father. Especially to her: the girl who never misses anything.

"Used to?" She asks promptly, though I try to hold it off as long as I can as I lay down the rabbit pelt on a nearby flat rock, muttering something more to myself about the drying-out process a pelt has to undergo.

"My father died." I say flatly, and unemotionally. As if I just told her that I don't like blackberries.

There is a brief silence as I figure she's digesting the news, which I feel my bitterness fester at the expectation of her words. "Katniss, I'm—"

"Don't say anything." I glance back to her and I hold my cold expression as I look into her sad eyes. "There's nothing to say. He's dead and if I let that eat me up, my sister will be dead too." I turn away and bite down on my lower lip. I leave it at that. It's time to teach her. And I tell the voice that I'll consider its offer later, not until I get some food out of her arms.

A different voice comes into my other ear and agrees with me. As I mentor her into the perfect stance and grip; she releases her first, misdirected arrow, and I decide that it _is_ right. With that naïve trusting part of me slowly drowning away as the brittle hours pass. I watch her as she shoots and retrieves and shoots blatantly off-target and swears under her breath and retrieves, in such a repetitious manner, until finally clipping her first bird. But there is no mentoring pride inside me. Just the calm, kind, deep voice throbbing in my head the entire time_. _I glance to the Seam and agree with the phantom, partially distorted voice of Gale. _We can always kill them later._

* * *

><p>"So it's sort of like an unspoken bond!" His loud, annoying voice is only retorted with captivated eyes and amazed expressions. And I cringe as I glance to my family and then I look to the forest and set the remainder of my bitterness on someone who I must tell myself deserves it.<p>

I've been sitting by this window for at least an hour, listening to the five of them, what with Posy taking an instant liking to the stranger. You can't blame a three-year old though. The look in her eyes when that stranger smiles at her, I'm only angered more because of how much I believe his sincerity. He holds her gently in his lap and asks her questions and I watch as my mother lightly smile and Vick and Rory follow innocently into the blossoming admiration.

"Yes, hello." The stranger repeats as Posy clutches his nose in her small fist. "I'm the Doctor." His nasally voice makes her giggle, which is contagious to the rest of them.

"Are you really a doctor?" asks Vick, and he looks to me with a smile. There's some inside-joke he's trying to remind me of. But I'm lost in my own thoughts. My stomach feels like it's eating itself as my doubt almost flutters away just for the sake of the hope he brings to them. But I still hate him.

"Well, I am a doctor of sorts." He says, staring off thoughtfully. "I've got a few pictures of me and Allen Whipple. He was a bit competitive. Though he called it '_responsible_'. And then of course, the brilliant Christiaan Barnard. Such a lovely bloke. Though it's all kind of ironic with him, being about hearts and love and he couldn't keep his…." His words peter off as he catches the confused looks from each gaunt, dirt-smeared face. "That's not important. I'm a doctor of sorts."

"What'cha doing here, Mr. Doctor?" asks Rory and immediately, the most sincere expression comes into the stranger's eyes.

"_Rory,_" He says quietly and the corner of his mouth twitches into a smile. "I'm here to help."

"You mean you're here to take down the Capitol?" Vick's eyes widen with excitement and I instantly look to my mother's collapsing-in-misery face.

"No, Vick." She says and places a firm, but kind hand on his shoulder. "We don't speak like that."

It's then I remember why I stopped going around the house, venting my anguish for the Capitol inside of these walls. The two small lionhearts that clutch to my every word. My mother took me aside and pleaded me to stop.

"_You'll get them hurt._" She said, and the more I watched my words and watched them, the more I knew she was right. They're fighters, they wouldn't hesitate to run into battle if it guaranteed them victory. It makes me glad our father died when he did. If not, I wouldn't have had the responsibility to keep myself in line to provide for and protect my family. That's what I have to settle for. At least when I'm here with them and I'm the protector and provider. I save my ranting for the woods. I'd rather my words burn down the forest than my home.

"But that's all that Gale would talk about!" counters Rory and I immediately bring a finger to my lips as he looks to me. "If he can helps us, what's the harm?"

"You don't know what you're saying." I say coldly. Though I know just by looking into his expressive eyes, he knows what he means by every word and he means it with all his heart, that heart that's no bigger than my fist. "This is how life is and we have to accept it." I lie, but this time the burning hatred of the Capitol stays at bay. "Dad wouldn't want us to get ourselves killed."

Suddenly, Vick tears up from the floor and stands in front of me, defiant and angry. "Dad wouldn't want us to cower and not fight for our right to live!"

"We _are_ living." My voice is raising and I feel myself staring into the powerful eyes of myself at ten-years old. This must have been the view my father had when he scolded me for my careless words. "And you don't get to decide what Dad would've wanted, not 'til I'm dead and Rory goes off and gets himself killed. _Then _you can pretend to know what the hell you're talking about and you can just let them all die!"

"_Gale_."

I feel a blanket of stinging nerves sweep over my skin and I hang my head and exhale slowly. My eyes slowly glance up to my mother and then to the pair of young faces and each one's welling eyes, to Posy who I've startled with my shouting. I smile bitterly.

"I'm sorry."

Without looking at any of them one more time, I reach inside of the rotting wardrobe and pull out my bulging game bag. I toss it over my shoulders, and leave with the sound of my heavy footsteps forming a steady beat in their silence. The door creaks shut and the last thing I hear is the wavering sound of Posy breaking into tears.

I travel to the Hob in a blurred state, trading off a couple squirrels and selling a rabbit. I must really be out of it if I can't even remember picking the berries that nestle inside of the small bag. Though I'm not really in as good a graces as Katniss with the mayor, so I keep them to sell later. Honestly, to just use them as an excuse for it to just be the two of us. Gale and Katniss: the hunters.

The moment I leave the Hob, like a vision in cloaked patheticness, I find the stranger is pacing outside the entrance. To my surprise, his face appears entirely depressed or perhaps disheartened to the extreme, as his journey to find the Hob must not have been entirely ideal for his irritating optimism. From the few smudges of dirt around his cheeks and nose and sunken mouth, I smile internally. He's got District 12 on his face. _Though not enough for my liking. _The moment he spots me, his misery is almost instantly taken away and he smiles as prances up to me. I don't bring myself to even look at him. He walks beside me, though I've perfected the feeling and mindset of walking alone. I'm walking down the street in a fast pace, it seems. I don't remember feeling this engulfed by this uncompromising bitterness and relentless anger before. The perfect combination of the two. It's something...new, as I feel it wrap around my skin and my lips press together in thought with solution I consider. I'm lost in it all that I barely hear him make some comment about the faint drizzle falling from the sky. I refuse him a grunt of acknowledgement. I know it'll rain. It'll rain _very soon_.


	6. Chapter 6

The sky settles for a gentle cry, and only the stranger seems revivified by the rain. He sticks out his tongue to catch a few drops and he smiles and twirls in a small patch of dampened earth.

"Rain is life!" He announces cheerfully, and places a friendly palm on my shoulder. "Don't let anyone tell you differently, Gale."

I immediately shove off his grip, but he doesn't seem to notice my hostility. He just continues with his child-like attitude as he leaps and kicks up a splash of water that formed had a small puddle.

"How did we do at the _Hob_?" I feel him look to me expectantly with a small smile, "Oh, a few kind people helped me to find it. How's our profit?"

Suddenly, I stop where I'm walking and turn back to him, "There is no 'we'." His hairless eyebrows arch in a confused manner and his mouth contorts into a pout. "There is _me _and _you_, and that's _it_. We're not some guy-team. We're not even friends. So just do me a favor, and shut up."

I wish I could say the rush in telling him off lasts, but as I turn back and continue my fast, angered pace, I'm not lucky enough for that kind of satisfaction.

"Only friends do each other favors." He murmurs and my head whips back to him, but he just looks away from my glare. He's a pestering child who immediately plays the innocent card after he's confronted. Reminds me of someone._ Yeah, one of those Colson brats_. I have no patience for this at all.

"Gale," He says gently, as if trying to lull me down from this cliff of escalating emotions. "I'm assuming that we're going to be around each other for quite a bit of time." I release an exasperated groan at the thought. "I know you don't trust me, and I know I've given you no indication to. But when I promise something like safety for a precious thing like family, I do intend for it not to be broken."

My brows furrow and I look back at him, "You _intend_ to?"

He nods solemnly, "And that's a promise."

The energy I'm putting in these emotions send a trembling fit to my legs as it all festers in the pit of my stomach. Though I find myself laughing as I shake my head at every ridiculous thing he believes is so definite. "You _intend _to be a man of your word? But if anything should happen?"

"And things tend to." He utters and brings up a thumb to scratch a patch of skin above one of his eyes. "Though my intentions are admittedly goo—"

"_Screw _that!" A shout outbursts from my mouth and it feels too good. I find my entire body nodding just in an attempt to keep myself calm. "Everyone _intends _for things to go well, but they never do. I need..-No. These _people_-" I motion a strong arm around as we've paused in the middle of a street, yet the burdening layer of rain is still unnoticed by us. "They need _more _than just your assumed promise that everything is going to be okay."

Slowly, hesitantly, his green eyes drift from my face and they catch on wavering faces of the few people around us. "If you are what you say, stop talking and just do it."

He retorts quickly and quietly. "I could say a similar thing to you."

Another obvious strike that takes me by painful surprise, and yet it's as if I no longer am speaking from my own mouth. "Why are you so hell-bent on pissing me off?"

He casually shrugs, "I just want to see how many rules you have." And suddenly, as if something else caught his attention, he fidgets self-consciously in place, combing back some of his moppy, wet hair. Almost like he's uncomfortable. _About what?_ His eyes glance around us, occasionally squinting, but it's too fast for me to catch what he's looking for.

"What is it?" I ask, and immediately he looks to me with an innocent look of utter surprise.

"What d'you mean, you're mad at me, yes?" His wide eyes dance around us once more, yet in a flicker he's back to looking at me, his expression now returning to 'normal'. "I thought that's what we had settled on."

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

At this, a strange, faint smile comes on his face and he slightly tilts his head, as if he's curious and amused by me. "Gale Hawthorne." He says almost reflectively. "I have a feeling we should be walking back to the Everdeen house."

I stand still as his expensive-looking shoes slosh past me in the mud and I watch him bring a palm through his soaking hair, roughly rubbing his head. It's only then I realize I'm completely soaked in the rain as well. But there feels like there's something else besides the gentle sound of rain that continues to resonate through everything. Almost as if something is building up in my ears. I stand still, watching his figure walk farther away, with my arms lifelessly at my side. My eyes widen without my consent. My head slightly lowers. I feel sick and overwhelmed by it. But my legs promptly trail behind him. And there's a moment where I feel a vacant swallow constrict in my throat and my fist tightens as the back of his head comes closer in detail and I can make out the defiant strands of hair that have banded together from the rain.

_One good hit. _It tells me. _Just one good hit. _

I am a marionette and my master gently pulls back my arm, though not a thought in my head is objecting. Everything feels so very slow, I blink and it lulls me again. My arm stiffens when it's reached the precise spot, and I feel the strength in the strike fill like a gauge. Yet suddenly, the moment my arm tightens, I hear my name is called out behind me and I freeze.

"_Hawthorne_!"

My head slowly cranes back, and I see whom I suspect from the partially cracking voice. Paul Morey, a small-time thug in our district. Or rather a glorified bully; solely glorified by himself and the three or four chumps that linger around him. His trademark of swishing a thin wooden stick around in his mouth and the slightly arched back, I can see he's on the look-out for an individual to overwhelm and beat mercilessly until he bores himself. He's never killed anyone. He wouldn't dare. Murder is promptly followed by a public execution. But I've heard when he's reaching his high, and his victim starts shriveling into a bloody and bruised mess, the wild in his eyes makes it difficult to tell if he would really be that stupid to just let it happen. His father is scum as well. But surely all it would take is a fat chunk of money to get him off. _It was self-defense_. And the others would be his vouching witnesses.

He approaches me with his hands firmly pressed into his back, looking quite uncomfortable yet too much of a diva to let it stop his pose. I exchange a quick glance with the rest of the boys around him. A new face and he barely looks fourteen.

"I _said '_Hawthorne'." repeats Morey in his usual self-aggrandizing tone. As if I should be thanking him for saying my name, as if I should feel honored that he's about to shove me to the ground and pressure his cronies into kicking me unconscious.

"What?" I stare into his squirming, cowardice eyes without wavering. Yet he still smirks.

He glances back to his left, and "hmmph"s humorously at the pair on that side and they reciprocate it. He looks back to me. "I saw you talkin' to that strange guy up there." Morey nods towards him and I hesitantly look.

My stomach somewhat tightens as I see the infuriating stranger looking back at me with a look of concern. I can tell his assessing the situation and deciding whether or not he should walk towards us or continue walking. _And I just wish he would keep walking_. But he doesn't. The somewhat fearful look is washed away and he combs back his wet hair once more and a sincere smile comes to his face. I see Morey shoot a preparing glance to the rest of them as he approaches. I feel it all slowly unravel.

"Hello." says my irritating acquaintance and he shares the polite smile to each face, knowingly stopping at their leader. "I'm the Doctor."

Paul Morey's small, black eyes slowly drift to mine, "He with you, Hawthorne?"

"How do you mean?" I ask as vaguely as I can, with a mixture of boredom, sarcasm, and perhaps a touch of amusement. I know his stupidity will miss the majority of them. But all he wants is me to blatantly say that the stranger isn't my friend at all. But the thought that he might be has to be humorous to more than just me. I'm a well-known loner. I don't have any 'guy friends' and I don't particularly want any. My father was the only guy friend I need.

The small amount of patience Morey has is already gone. He scoffs, shaking his head, "I _mean_, is he your friend?"

I pause for a moment. Considering, contemplating, then deciding. I take a long step back, and turn my back to all of them.

"No."

What promptly follows is something I don't take the time to look back at. A stifled groan from the stranger, the sound of punches landing, and a weight falls to the sloppy earth. But I hear a scuffle that I take for them pulling him back up.

A few drops of rain catch bitterly on my skin, and I find myself stopping, turning back to watch, almost in anticipation as the strikes pour through. Slowly, splotches of blood meet the starving earth, and the Doctor doesn't fight back or even insinuate to struggle away from them. Even when one of them comes up behind him and kicks him in the back and it sends him face-first to the muddy ground. A pair of arms drag him back up, and the sight of Morey's toothy grin is almost the most unsettling. Though it doesn't really compare to the nameless expression I can see on the stranger.

He wipes his palm across the Doctor's face, to wipe off the mud, and without missing a step, he resumes beating his pinking knuckles against the smeared, bleeding skin. I watch as the Doctor quietly grunts as he takes each hit, and as that sends Morey into more of a blood-thirsty fit. Not one of his members even utters a protest when it escalates and their faces don't appear like they ever will.

I stand in the center of the pouring rain, letting it all hide the shame of what I have done.

* * *

><p><em>Oh, what have I done?<em> is something I can't seem to stop asking myself as the fire-haired girl continues to walk swiftly around the forest with her bow and arrow stiffly ready. I find myself rolling my eyes at her more times than I can continue to say I simply got dirt in them again.

She's not really all that hopeless with a bow. It seems to be her technique she's adapted on her own that's wearing me thin. As I watch her, I believe it's her habit of announcing everything out loud, specifically to herself, the estimated distance and intended target, as if the logistics help her focus. Not something I find all that believable considering.

"_Three feet._" Wrong. "_North _west." Wrong again. "_Tree._" I'm not sure how long it takes to adjust to food deprivation and a strange environment, but her internal compass is entirely pathetic. I keep it to myself that it must be why she misses each practice target. I know she will just retort that it's a….. what did she say? A "guesstimation", I think it was. Inept or not, I have to give her some credit, she did keep the two of them alive for four days. I don't think the Doctor was really much help, from what I can tell from her absent, angry cursing. They almost always end with "_Doctor_".

I can't help but give myself something to be amused about, and I imagine what a killer she'd be if she is chosen for the Games. But that's impossible anyway. She's not from District 12. Or any District, I'm now starting to believe. She's too….odd. Too short-tempered, too fiery, too strong. We're all crippled in one form or another and she doesn't seem to be crippled at all.

It doesn't matter how many times she announces to herself the distance, she can't hit a single test tree. As she releases another arrow and it flies off blatantly in rebellion, she curses, this time actually under her breath. The cuss words I've learned today. Though I realize more and more that she tries to use logic to anchor her emotions.

The fire-haired girl doesn't notice me as I leap behind her and she seems unphased as I place a hesitant hand on her shoulder. "You've got to relax." I say, but her stiffness doesn't loosen and it's then I see why she's kept it. She's lightly shaking from exhaustion and food deprivation. I've seen this only one or two times, when someone who is used to eating three healthy meals a day is suddenly without one decent one.

Without another word, I turn away and break into a jog in the opposite direction. My eyes scour each small bush I come across until I find a few plump berries that I know are safe to eat. I return to where she was with a bit less than a handful gently cradling my palm. I lift them up to her, expecting them to be instantly plucked up and swallowed.

She looks to them with an unimpressed expressed, "Are those poisonous?"

"No." I respond after somewhat of a long pause. No. _I think._ I'm not that devious or clever. But even so, I look to them for a double take. For a moment I remain silent as I try to replay my choosing, with an itch in the back of my head that the voice influenced it and without my conscious knowing they picked these. It's not entirely impossible that I would wind up picking poison for a girl I really have no issue against killing.

"No." I say again, but doubtfully.

"Convincing." She murmurs and sighs as she turns her attention back to the bow in her hand. "I'm relatively trusting, but I'm not stupid."

"Neither am I." I remark with a hint of anger. Though I don't know why I'm so defensive, when she's really given me next to no reason not to.

"Yeah, I _know_." She gives that a nice pause and me, a knowing look. "But so far, I haven't openly insinuated that I want to kill you."

What can I say to that? Nothing fast enough for her. She's already shirking it off and darting deeper through the trees. Good, I think. I didn't have a good excuse anyway. It seems all I can really do is deeply consider killing her. More as the hours drag on.

When I finally sigh and jog after, I've lost track of her for a few minutes. The silence of the calm forest and not a rustle of leaves to indicate which direction she went. Though despite my heart quietly pounding in anxiety of a surprise attack, I know she won't kill me. _And if she does…_my train of thought stops there. I know this forest, and my sense turn to the faintest rustle. I'm standing silent, motionless, as my eyes hesitantly blink at the sight of a doe. It's standing a few yards in front of me, her jaw moving side to side as she chews some leaves. I'm not immediately armed and with her ears partially erect, I would never load an arrow fast enough anyway. I just decide to stand still and watch her. Something peaceful. Like the peace Gale brings to me when we actually lie on our backs and nibble a few strands of grass.

All too soon and all too slow, the corner of my eye catches a figure leaping out from behind the shrouding foliage. My sights focus on the flowing wave of her red hair as she seems to glide through the air. She's flying.

No. Not flying. A dramatic jump off a stump with her arms stiffly kept and her arrow shooting from the bow. I turn my head, and it all seems to happen so slowly, I think I hear the batting wings of a startled bird as it tries to take a moment of our distraction to flee. On the back of the arrow, my eyes drift to the deer.

"Unbelievable." I murmur as the deer crumples to the ground, fidgeting for a mere second and then stillness. In that brief second, I find myself swallowing away that peace, the bitter sadness as it releases a choked breath; its last. Though despite the emotions, I tuck that quickly away. I make a note of the bush it fell under, and I turn to where I heard the fire-haired girl land. I'm jogging towards her, and the sentiments vanish and suddenly I have a strange feeling of excitement, and I'm surprised to have some sort of smile on my face, "You _got _it."

"Better damn well have." She groans, and I pause as she struggles on her feet. I see her left arm tensely bent and she cringes at the small coat of blood that has already begun to seep with gusto from the spreading gash. It's simultaneous, how we look to the jagged piece of rusted metal that's found its home wedged between the thick, strong roots of a towering tree. It's familiar, that type of metal. Almost like it had been torn from some sort of machine, or perhaps an aircraft. And it looks old. Though all I'm really wondering is how I didn't notice it before. Its fang is dribbling with a few strands of flesh blood and I finally glance back to the fire-haired girl.

"Why would you do that?" I mutter and her eyes find mine and strangely, a smile comes over both of our faces.

"Thought it'd look a bit cool, actually." She quietly admits and she looks back to her damp sleeve and trembling arm.

"Are you asking if it did?" I ask as I reach my hand down to her and help her up to her shaky legs.

"I was _trying _to, you know._ Nonchalantly_." And immediately she scatters a faint gasp as the weight on her legs bring a new pain.

"Well," I somewhat sigh, "I think you might've fractured something in your leg or bruised it up badly." And in perfect unison, she moves to wrap her good arm around my shoulders and my hand grips her waist steady. Though I know all she'll hear is my feedback. I replay the overdramatic leap in my head and the shot as it pierced the deer, "But it was kind of cool."

"Cool." She says proudly, trying to mask her shortening breaths and groans of pain. "That's all that matters."

"Debatable." I retort. "A hungry family would argue that it's the quality and quantity of the meat." I guide her to cling to a tree as I kneel to pull the arrow from the deer's throat. I share a moment of sadness with its frozen death.

"How'd I do, then?"

I glance back at her to catch her wincing at the wound, but she's quick to catch me and she fakes a smile as she firmly clutches it. I can see her eyes lightly tremble from the excruciating pain.

"It looks healthy." I say somewhat absently, waiting to see her succumb to the extent of how it must feel so I can use it as an excuse to help.

"And fat." She quickly adds. "Not pregnant though, yeah?"

I press my hand underneath the deer's belly, "No. Just a bit plump."

My eyes decide to finally look to her arm and I stand up and walk to her. I grab the bottom of her shirt with both hands and she remains still as I tear a strip from it. Before I even think to say it, she holds out her arm and I grimace at the dripping blood and tearing gash. I take a quick glance to the sharp edges of the metal debris. The perfect angle and speed of her fall. It was strange fate. A nice cut five inches long and maybe two inches deep into her arm. Almost like that piece was waiting there this entire time just to hurt one last time. But I fasten the strip as quickly as I can around her arm and tighten it as she grits her teeth and stifles a painful cry.

I find myself staring at the blood that stains on my hands. "Kind of funny." I say gingerly.

She tilts her head at me, her eyes watching me closely, amused. "Yeah?"

I somewhat shrug, with a nonchalant, shirking air, "You said you weren't really around blood before."

She nods and she's surprisingly smiling, "And yet you have been and you look paler than me."

"I don't do human blood."

She arches a brow at me, and I'm oblivious to how I feel when she shoots me a knowing look. As if I'm okay with her knowing something about me. "Okay, I barely do animal blood."

"So _you're_ squeamish." She smiles widely and sticks out her tongue at me. Suddenly, the fire-haired girl looks just like a child. And for a moment, I feel like one too.

"Shut up."

She's lightly laughing now. "Ah, I don't see that happening." I quickly turn back and grab both ends of the tourniquet to tighten it exponentially. She lets out an immediate cry, and yet instantly smacks me across the head, cussing me out. I shrug off the faint streams of tears that left her control. She's still releasing some sort of laughter as I turn back to the deer.

"We've got to skin it, though." I kneel to it, and glance back at her.

Immediately, and as I expected, her laughter dies out and I can feel her take one look at the deer and another look back to me, "Yeah, I'm injured." She raises her bloodied arm with an innocent expression.

"How convenient." I half-heartedly sigh. I didn't want her messing up a skinning of such a pristine carcass anyway. But my second take of the deer and I know we won't be able to successfully carry this back without getting caught. Or at least that's the best my migraine-stricken head can think. "I don't think we can anyway. It's too much right now. I'll hide it up somewhere."

Her eyes are wide and she follows my gaze towards the towering tree. "You're a good climber, then?"

"I'm not bad." I say, and with a sudden motion, I remove my father's jacket and roll the deer inside, tying the sleeves tightly around it. "I'll use some cable to help though."

"So, cheating."

I pull out some spare wire I had planned to set up a snare with, and I double-tie a knot around the knotted sleeves. It won't help much, but it should be useful in stopping me from being completely weighed down by it. I toss it over a sturdy branch and hand the other end to her. She doesn't need an explanation. I feed my arm through under the sleeves to try to give myself an idea of how difficult this is going to be. I give it a tug up; impossible. Immediately, I fall back to crash against the ground, shaking my head.

"Yeah." She says quietly. "That thing's like a hundred pounds." Yet the subtext of that was, "Yeah…..I don't know why you thought that would work."

I sit and think for quite a long time, longer than usual, running down different ideas. Cover it up with ferns and hope for the best? Yeah. That's even more idiotic than me thinking I could scale a tree while carrying a hundred-and-twenty pounds with one arm. A bear would sniff it out in an hour and have it gone quicker than that. Strap it to my back and power through? My hopes are unrealistically high if I think I can even take two steps without my weakened muscles giving out. After the silence, I decide to settle for cutting it up and leaving what we can't carry. Though that frustrates me to no end to waste meat that'll mean our lives. Without Gale to throw it up on his shoulders, I'm starting to realize why I kept him around. Not that I ever shot a deer on a regular basis anyway.

"Are you taking suggestions?" She asks when she's caught me out of my thoughts.

I glance up at her and wearily shrug, "Sure."

She takes one look to the deer and tilts her head curiously, "Could we bury it? Just wrap it up and bury it close to the fence. I mean, you can come back with Gale in less than an hour?"

I don't waste a moment to shoot down her idea. "We don't have anything to wrap it in that would protect it."

"You've already wrapped half of it in your own jacket, I've got one too." Without even waiting for my word of protest, she slips off her expensive-looking jacket and positioning it over the deer, gives me a triumphant smile when it covers over.

I sigh from the exhaust of the day, "All right, then."

The fire-haired girl leaps to the deer, gripping the sides with both arms and I immediately shout at her as I stagger to my feet. "_Stop. _You're going to hurt your arm."

She looks at me as if I just told a confusing riddle, "But…" She says quietly and looks to her left arm. "It's fine."

I release an exasperated groan, "I _meant_ your right arm, you.."

She starts to smile, "You… _what_?"

I quickly shake my head and stomp towards her, shooing her off the lower body's side. "This side will be heavier."

"Of course. That's why I want to—"

"_Get on the other side_."

She's too amused by my anger and that only seems to bug me more. But surprisingly, she complies, and leaps over to the deer's head to grab it with both hands.

"Only use your good arm." I say firmly, but she just looks at me with that childish expression of "Haha, no." and she starts to drag it herself, to which I quickly try to carry my own side. "_Now, _I'm getting how you and the Doctor work."

"Yeah." She lightly groans at the pain, but all while keeping her faint smile. "We don't."

The further we walk side-ways through the forest, the more I can't help but take notice to her as she quietly releases a pained breath every five seconds but doesn't say anything at all. She keeps the pace. I stare at her bloody arm and I feel something smug inside of me. For a moment, I believe it to be the voice. The voice that told me to kill her. The voice that faintly continues to tell me. And yet, it says something else. And I can barely make it out. It's not quite, "_Congratulations, she's wounded. It'll be easier to surprise-kill her now_." It's smirking with contempt towards _me_. My own demon is disdained by me. As we begin to dig a hole just on the edge of the forest, and my eyes can't jump away from her arm, I realize why it had grown to despise me so quickly. It isn't, "_You failed_". As I accept her high five and lunge to her when she starts to faint and shoulder her weight as she continues to excitedly tell about the very rain that has swept over us without warning, how she loves rain, I could feel it clutching my throat, breathing its hot breath on me.

"_You care_."

As we approach my house and I assure her that she'll be fine, I walk her onto the porch and into the open doorway. I don't have to guide her as I stop dead in my tracks. It's simultaneous. We both stand, sharing the same stunned expression as we stare into the house. There, laying out on the wooden table where I had seen so many die, is the once-smiling stranger. Grotesquely bloodied, and severely beaten, and hopefully….just unconscious.

I cuss in my thoughts.

_I do care._


	7. Chapter 7

I stand frozen in the doorway, partially relieved and partially disappointed that I see his eyelids lightly flutter as his chest slightly rises and falls with each quiet breath. _He's alive. Damn it. _My mother circles around the table and modestly dabs a light green-coloured balm on what looks like sutured cuts. The injuries on his side, even from this distance, look severe. Though from what I can tell of the powerful medicine she's chosen, after the first week's swelling fades, the wounds will heal faster than usual.

I know that much: _his condition won't worsen, so long as he remains stable_. But that type of quiet comment won't comfort the fire-haired girl from the indescribable emotion that I catch brewing on her face as I watch her from the corner of my eye, fearing that any type of direct look with quickly warrant some violent, emotional outburst.

But I don't have another second to wonder. Without warning, she pulls her arm off my shoulder and slowly walks over to him just as he flinches in place, faintly reacting as a deep wound is persistently dabbed with medicine. I exchange a look with my mother, but before she can read my stern eyes, the fire-haired girl gently places a hand on my mother's arm.

"_Will he be all right_?" She whispers in such a quiet voice that I can barely recognise. The response is a slight nod. "_Thank you_."

The fire-haired girl glances down at his bruised and bloodied face for what seems like forever. He's still restless even in his sleep. Then again I'm not entirely sure if he_ is_ sleeping or if he's waiting for her to look away before he allows himself to stir again. Regardless, he can get his wish. Prim walks into the room in the focused pace that she's perfected with the responsibility of assisting our mother, yet she stops dead in her tracks when she sees the two of us.

"_Katniss_." She says quietly, and I almost think I hear some sort of relief in her voice. But attention to me is short-lived, and she glances to the fire-haired girl, and immediately reaches for her stiffly bent arm. "You're hurt."

The fire-haired girl gives a puzzled expression and looks to her left arm, but this time it isn't a part of some light-hearted joke. It seems she's genuinely confused. Prim exchanges a look of what I've learned as something serious, and by my mother reciprocating, I may have actually done what the voice wanted by feeling no urgency in treating her arm. They both surround her and guide her to a wooden stool, and not another moment passes before they're cutting away the strips of blood-soaked cloth. Prim swallows hard and my mother quietly exhales. And before my very eyes, they're a well-oiled machine, of one mind, retrieving an array of different medicines as a bucket of herb-treated water is promptly readied to flush out the wound.

I watch the fire-haired girl, perhaps purposely ignoring him as he lay there, and I absently drift inside towards the table. My fingertips stretch out and unintentionally touch his cold skin, giving my eyes the excuse to glance down at him. But the moment I do, I see a pair of bright green eyes staring up at me. He silently puckers his lips, and releases some sort of breathless hush, with his forefinger barely lifting up to motion me not to react. I don't, and I wouldn't have anyway. And perhaps his minimum effort tells me that he knows that much about me. I ignore the uncomfortable shuffle that stirs up in my legs just at that thought.

Impatience overwhelms me quickly enough, and I finally look to the worst of his wounds. I see large splotches of blackening purple painted across his torso, a various array of ragged cuts carved into his flesh, and suddenly my mind can only see his skin as a canvas. It's easier that way.

I've always had to detach human gore as something like that. When Kaleb and Jordan Hortail brought in their older brother and his side had been sliced open from a mining accident, I could only look at it for less than a second before my stomach set itself off. Prim was so young then and my mother would sternly enforce me to help. I had to detach myself from looking at blood and bones and the only thing I could figure out, besides having to bite down on my tongue, was to look at the blood simply as paint and skin simply as a white canvas. It works quite well. Either way, a painting or a gushing wound, it's all credit to someone's handiwork.

He watches me as I lose myself in staring, and it's then I realize what I'm missing. Something that isn't there to be noticed. My brows furrow as I quickly look around the room for his shirt and pants, expecting at least to see them frantically thrown on the floor. But there's nothing. Not even the small cloth that he had tethered to his neck. He's lying there wearing just his mud-smeared underwear, and I make a quick note that they're as I could've guessed for the stranger. White with mint-green stripes. And I suppose he catches it my thought of their ridiculousness. He has a faint, childish smile on his face when I glance to his eyes once more, slightly shaking my head as I've previously scolded him against wearing such things.

I look to the fire-haired girl, and I'm unsettled to see her partially laying across the end of the table with her face buried in her other arm. For a moment, as I see my mother carefully bringing a wire needle to and from the wound, that perhaps she's gritting down from the pain. But with her loose shoulders and her legs lifelessly hanging off the stool, I see she's long since passed out. _Good, _I think. At least she has a better chance at rest now.

There's a light touch against my hand, and I see he's trying to catch my attention, though modestly, as if he's the least important person in the room. I internally scoff, leaning close to his mouth, and I prepare myself to hear whatever he has to say, perhaps half-expecting it to be some clue to his attacker. But all that comes out of his mouth are four small words.

"_Watch out… for her_."

I can only nod, and he musters a grateful smile as unconsciousness takes him. I turn to reach for a thin wool blanket, delicately placing over his chilled skin, and I find myself doing nothing but what was asked of me.

I look over to my mother and Prim, and they've just finished binding the wound. Such finesse. A master and her promising pupil. How I can never compete.

My legs are still stiff as I try to walk over to catch a comforting glimpse from the fire-haired girl's pale face, but my stomach somewhat sinks when there's no longer a mask of childish carelessness clinging to her beautiful features. She's gone, or very close to it.

Prim motions towards me to hurry up, ducking her head under one arm and I promptly do the same for the other. My mother slowly backs away as I shoot her an unintentionally stern look. I make a note to give her a break next time I shouldn't as a way of apologising for it.

"_Gently_." Prim whispers to me, and if I was watching her from a distance, I would smile at how much of an adult she becomes when she's helping others. Despite her size, she shoulders an equal amount of weight, if not more, and we slowly walk the fire-haired girl to our room. I catch Prim shuffling uncomfortably once we reach a mess of torn blankets that'll serve as her bed, and I can tell she thinks I won't be delicate enough as we lay the fire-haired girl down, but with my arm swooping down to grip her waist, I manage to lay her down without Prim uttering anything more.

With the fire-haired girl's arm treated; sown up and securely fastened with fresh, medicine-laced bandages, the rain finally dies away and as the rest of the afternoon wears on, I can see colour coming back to her face. _He'll be relieved. _I swallow self-consciously and I'm on my feet and walking towards the stranger before I can even remember my promise to watch her like a hawk. I think if I can just whisper to him that she's fine, that maybe he'll leap from the table and throw his arms in the air with that big, stupid smile on his face, assuring me, as he'd adjust the phantom cloth around his neck, that it was all just a way of saving her. Surely, he's like that.

I stop at the head of the table, and frown at his vacant shivering. What's it been? Three hours, maybe four, and he's still immobile and his skin perhaps even more pale and definitely colder. As if the blanket stubbornly decided to drink in any warmth from him. I swallow self-consciously again, my head slowly turns for the doorway, and I bite down on my lip, ignoring the voice as it cackles at how much I'm continuing to care for them.

* * *

><p>It's almost dusk when I reach Gale's door, and I knock without thinking of how much energy I'm putting into my knuckles. How loud and angry even my knocking sounds. And how anxious they are to meet the hardness of someone's face. <em>No, nevermind.<em> Without more than a few seconds passing, the door creaks open and I see his eyes. They seem the same.

"I need your help." I say quickly, whipping my head back as I fast-walk onto the street. My fists tighten and I glance back, only to see he's not following after me. "Gale?"

He stares at me with hesitation, as if he's trying to read something in my expression. Perhaps he believes that this is all a ploy to lure him into a trap. I'm not really all that surprised to think he'd come to that suspicion, he's always the first to suggest such inane conspiracy theories.

I give him a reassuring nod to follow, and he reluctantly steps out, but I notice how he walks a decent amount behind me. When I glance back at him, he evades my eyes and takes an interest in the drying ground and keeps it there. It's as if I'm walking with an entirely different person. A coward.

"I have a deer, Gale." I whisper, solely to spark some sort of normalcy between us. Though I'm quick to realize how his suspicion of a trap is most likely thickened by that bit of unrealistic news. A look of a surprise comes on his face, but that's it. And it quickly seeps away. "I had to bury it by the fence. I don't suppose you could be the muscles once again and lug it for me?"

"Sure." He says monotonously, and another wave of awkward silence crashes over us.

"Actually, it's quite a story of how it happened." Now I'm hating myself for having to talk so much, which happens frequently. Like whenever I talk at all. Especially in such a forced manner. "The fi—er, Amy actually leapt from a tree stump and shot it mid-air. It was unbelievable."

"Sounds it."

Another flat response and I'm quickly growing fed-up with his attitude. And what's worse is that I can tell he senses it, but he's still sticking to this rigid persona. Though at least, I think, a reaction appears after a brief moment. He turns to look at me with a frown and furrowed brows, and I admit this somewhat unsettles me. He stops walking, and stares directly into my eyes, with something I see as anger boiling up the surface. For this, I can't imagine what will happen next, and I stand stiff and awkward. The way his hand slightly twitches as it remains at his side; will he strike me across the face? Part of me wishes he will.

Surely he's wanted to before, but I thought even then it was in the high of irrational anger, in our games of ruining the other's kill. Him chasing after me, unsuccessfully, shouting my name as I laugh back at him, egging him just for the fun of it. On that particular occasion, I not only scared off the rabbit, but I also made him fumble his snare and that dominoed him to accidentally release the bird he had just caught. And what anger ensued after that wasn't entirely unjustified. But it was simply the superficial anger that could be so quickly resolved if I threw clods of wet dirt back at him and he broke into a shirking smile. He tackled me to the ground and for a strange moment, we just shared this childish peace. He collapsed beside me and we stared up at the tree branches and how they shaded us. Perhaps, we thought, we could just fall asleep and wake up in a better world. Just a bunch of dreamers, in that forest. We couldn't hope to stay truly angry at each other for very long. Though it did happen. A lot.

But right now? This person who is still staring into my eyes, I don't recognize him. Barely, I'll say. Suddenly his expression breaks, and one of his eyelids twitches uncomfortably and he somewhat shakes his head.

"I'll get the deer myself." He says to my shoes, and he glances back up and presses his lips together in a way I figure he's meaning to smile reassuringly. "You said by the fence?" His eyes have softened completely, but still there's a difference. It's still the face of someone else. It's still fake. And..something else.

I stare a bit longer and then I think I've named it. A worried, yet remorseful expression. But I immediately shrug it off. It doesn't matter. He doesn't need to apologize for being overprotective with our families. I'm sure I would hate myself just as much if I stood where he is. I awkwardly pat my palm against his shoulder, and nod to his offer.

"You should see a noticeable patch of dirt a few yards inside the fence." I say. "It's buried down a couple of feet."

He cringes, and his head cranes towards me, "You _buried_ it?"

"I didn't have much of a choice." I retort, and yet an arrogant-looking smile comes on his face. As if he's pleased that I can't handle a kill alone. I decide to prepare some sort of defense on my capability, but all that comes out of my mouth is a question that seems to have come rushing up from the back of my head. "What happened with him?"

Slowly, his smirk fades away into the uncomfortable expression that belongs to that someone else, "What happened to who?"

I lightly scoff, shaking my head, "The Doctor."

He pauses for a moment, and he glances off as if expecting someone is watching us. Always the paranoid one. "Doctor who?"

"Come on, Gale." I say impatiently, pausing a moment, delicately stepping around the words I just want to flat-out say. "Di-What happened? You were with him, weren't you? I don't understand how he could've gotten attacked if you were with him."

He looks into my eyes with that same uncertainty of which I can't define, "What are you talking about? H-He was attacked?"

"Gale, how could you not know? I came home to find him looking worse than that September rabbit."

Long story short, a desperate day led to the pair of us being entirely stupid and trying to pick a kill from a bear. Fortunately, the bear was starving too and we were able to pluck it from its claws while the other distracted its attention. Unfortunately, the rabbit was already bone-thin and so mangled that Gale decided to bitterly toss it on his shoulder. We only were able to use the skin.

"Wait, S-September rabbit?"

Now I know he's running himself into lies. And it's enough to give me an irritated tone. "He was attacked, that much is true. And whoever attacked him took his clothes. But why would they do that, Gale? If he walked up to anyone, they'd be scared of him, _especially _dressed the way he was. Someone had to have known he wasn't from the Capit-"

He suddenly snaps at me, with fatigue overflowing in his eyes. "_Katniss_, what do you want me to say?"

I feel something burn up to my throat, and it's all too soon that every inch of Gale's expression is pissing me off. Coward. Or maybe not. But the confusion has me riled enough to try a swing at him.

"_Geez!_" I miss him, but with my other arm waling back for another shot. He flails backwards and trips over a dip in the street, falling hard against his backside. "He isn't worth it, all right?!" He instantly barks out, and a look of panic floods him.

Slowly, I shake my head, in disgust, in anger, in every negative aspect before my lips press together and I turn back for my house. "If he dies…" I glance back at him, staring so very long with a look I can only guess is threatening and dark, for I think I see some sort of …fear in his eyes and guilt brewing against the worn lines on his face. My voice doesn't continue, and I turn back, deciding that the answer must be something even I don't know. And I leave it at that.

My footsteps overlap the sound of him behind me, shuffling to his feet and supposedly walking towards the woods, and I know that neither of us is glancing back at the other. There's a tightening in my stomach, a worse pang than just hunger.

I walk slowly, staring down at my right foot as each step compresses the ashen ground and I sigh heavily. Not for distress, but just to feel the way my lungs seemingly panic when I release so much of air and give no indication of resupplying. So many times I found myself breathing like that. To exhale and stall. How I could feel my lungs lightly quiver in anxiety. I don't think I would ever stop breathing. I sharply inhale through my nose, and reassert that thought. I won't ever stop breathing.

My sore legs drag up the wooden steps of our house and I lift my throbbing head up to face the cavernous shadows that thicken with the fast-approaching nightfall. A jolt and my teeth are biting down hard against my lips, trying to stifle the fire-haired girl's favorite curse only to use it in my last breath.

Sprawled against the stained table is simply the blanket that once covered the stranger, warming only the wood. I enter with a figure mirroring me. And another curse musters at the sight of the fire-haired girl staggering out of the doorway, still with that look of innocent confusion on her face, and the expression bleeds further the moment her hazel eyes glance to the abandoned table.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's note: You never thought this update would come, did you? I wish I could say it's worth the eight-month wait.**

* * *

><p>I exhale a breath of relief as Prim comes up quickly behind the fire-haired girl and effortlessly lulls her back to rest into the darkness of the room. Suddenly, a rush of trembling helplessness overtakes me at how frustrated I feel that there's no one to lull me into an unconscious state anymore. There's no one to sway me into vacant peace. Not anymore. I shrug. Oh well.<p>

I lean backwards against the frame of the front door and it's a few blank minutes before I realise I've slipped to the floor. I swallow, catching the outside in my peripheral. It's nearly completely nightfall and it'll only get darker, I tell myself. I'll never find him, if the Peacekeepers haven't already. I blink, with that voice garbling incoherently in the back of my mind. I think I can make out a scoffing _Why do you even care?_. Perhaps, he's already dead. Long-dead. Or dying. No. I swallow hard and quietly exhale. Dead is better. It's already too late and dead is better.

It takes next to nothing for me to slip away, but even less when I feel a gentle hand rest on my shoulder. My eyes jolt open and they blink the image of Prim's face. She's kneeling in front of me with a tender look on her face.

"He's—" I can barely even hear her, but I nod before she can finish, and for a moment she looks at me with a mixture of concern and displeasure. I lean my head slightly to the right and my eyes stare past her for the doorway, yet as Prim is always Prim, she knows my wordless inquiry. "Still sleeping." She says quietly and without wasting another second, she stands up and reaches out her hand to me. I press my lips together in a convincing smile and let her lift me up a bit. Prim shuffles back to the room and I stand frozen as my eyes fixate to the floor in front of the bare table. _He could still be alive. _Something whispers. I quickly shake my head, trying to absently walk past it, trying to ignore the _what if_s. _What if he's dead. What if he's not. What if I could walk out and find him and he'd smile breathlessly and wave me towards him and ask about his fire-haired girl and he could survive this. What if I could intervene and I could save his life. I could stop it from happening. I could just.. _

Suddenly, I stop and I glance to see the tips of my fingers brushing across the cold wood. I feel exhaustion boil over me, with a few thoughtless tears escaping my knowing, with frustrations turning into a quiet fit of crying. It's good, I tell myself. I'll sleep better. Even so, I cry harder in the silence and annoyance of myself. I shouldn't be crying. I haven't cried since…I told myself I had no tears left, that my emotions were a bone-dry canteen and squeezing its hollow girth would only be frustratingly fruitless and that I had better accept that perhaps whatever made me human had long died. Whatever it is, confusion and fatigue or the sense of betrayal, from Gale or myself, I can't yet decide. But he's gone. That smiling idiot. I don't even know him and he's gone and he's dead and it's better. Isn't it?

"_Dammit. Dammit. Dammit_." I grit through my teeth, and almost in the same moment, it sweeps out and I remind myself that Prim is barely in the other room and I roughly smear away the tears, clearing my throat and exhaling. It's done.

I shift my weight to lean down towards the table, my shoulder aching and resonating throughout my body at the sudden hardness of the wood and I slide over onto it, my feet hauling up the heavy boots and my chest hauling something heavier. The ringing in my ears somehow eases to nothing as I settle my back uncomfortably against the table. I blink. And again. Slower. With more effort. Staring up at the ceiling and hearing his voice speaking in a high tone, _The table is very unpleasant for a rest, Kat-niss. _I swallow, with my throat making a disgustingly slimy noise and it reminds my stomach that it's empty. Which reminds my throbbing head that Prim's stomach is empty. And there's a wounded person in her bed and she's watching over her. She can manage that. Prim can starve and still make sure someone else doesn't die. I stare at the ceiling. The night vacantly runs on and I stare. Streams of warmth and wetness glide down the sides of my face.

* * *

><p>I blink several times, making out a face standing over me. The first thing I notice are the bright, bright eyes. Light and clear, staring straight through me. My head feels like it's sloshing inside of its own emptiness and I quietly groan as surfacing consciousness gives me the privilege of returning to my aching pangs. Yet even so, it all feels so surreal that I'm certain no physicality can restrain me from lifting to the sky.<p>

All at once, it all comes flooding back, and my voice musters something on its own.

"…_Dad_?" I take in a quick breath, and what feels like a sharp pain in my stomach, I leap forward to sit up as my head throbs excruciatingly. I press my fingertips into my forehead, shaking my head lightly. "What are you doing here, Gale?" I ask, more so groan, and I turn to look over at him as he hesitantly looks me in the eye.

The window behind him shows the fresh turquoise of first morning and he glances away for a moment, scratching his neck and even in my haziness, I wonder if his eyes are actually that welled-up.

"I got the deer." He says quietly. "We can trade for it today."

"Great, Gale." I say coolly, arching my back as if hoping some sort of crack will automatically remedy how uncomfortable up the table left it. "You're just plucking off defenseless creatures for your benefit left and right, eh?"

I glance over at him and arch a brow. He faintly shakes his head. "K-Katniss…come on." He presses his lips together, lowering his head as he takes a moment to inhale. His eyes fall to the floor. "I didn't—"

"That's exactly right." I say quickly, feigning a smile when he looks up at me. If the pit that was my stomach wasn't so aching, if that didn't remind me of everyone else's hunger, if my body wasn't hurting more than usual, if none of this mess ever happened, I would've reconsidered how I stare back at Gale. But right now, I can't. He's a small boy to me as he stands there, blinking more than usual like he's just waiting for the opportunity to explain his side and have me return to his side, to reassure him.

The silence stiffly goes on and it isn't until he speaks that I realise I've not yet blinked and my eyes feel as they're on fire. He swallows and hesitantly mutters, "I just felt.."

"Scared." Again I'm too on-edge to let him finish. The exhaustion is making me deliriously invigorated. "You felt scared. And that's fine. Gale, it is. You can't have a life like this and not be afraid." His shoulders somewhat relax, and I finally pry my eyes from burning holes through his forehead. "But honestly," I pause, sighing as I shake my head. "We can't afford to be scared like that. 'Cos when does it stop?"

His eyebrows furrow in confusion and I slide off the table, my boots making a nice clomping sound and I glance back at the doorway. I look back at Gale as I see no figure stir from Prim's bed. "You start giving that fear a piece of you, Gale, and it'll take all of you. You'll be a hollow coward who can't trust anyone."

Suddenly, someone who looks a lot more like Gale glances up at me, I stop and look back at him and he frowns. "Are you honestly saying you trust those strangers? Honestly, Katniss?" His voice quietly grows more defined in his anger. "You would honestly trust them with your family? With Prim? What could possibly make you-"

"His _eyes_." I say suddenly, and I'm staring off absently just to picture his face. "I told them about the Hunger Games and the way it.." I press my lips together and hang my head, bringing up a hand to comb back the strands of my hair that fall over my eyes. "He can't die. Not here." I look at Gale and I give him a small smile at the way his face is slowly softens. "We can't let that happen, all right?"

He takes a step back, fitting his palms against his hips and helplessly shrugs, "Why not?"

I just watch him for a few seconds and I shrug back at him. "He's someone's dad, Gale. So." I gently tug at the pockets of my jacket and exhale towards the front door, setting up in my head already all the places he might be. "We can't let that happen. Not again. _I _can't let it happen again."

There's a moment of rushing silence, when suddenly the floor creaks and my head darts to see the fire-haired girl shakily making her way out of the doorway. Her eyes are squinting hard as she grips the doorframe, exhaling a quiet groan and from how pale her face is, I figure she has such a migraine that it's a wonder she dragged herself up at all. But even so, the unlikeliness of her nature is still there.

"I think I may have unintentionally licked some dirt in my sleep." She says in a hoarse voice, and she glances up looking for someone to give her an amused reaction, finding only wide-eyes from both me and Gale. She gives a small smile, and sniffles, closing her eyes and craning her neck around until she gets her quiet crack and she exhales a contented sigh. "Better than sleepin' outside, true. Better especially than him thinkin' he can climb a tree to sle—" She stops suddenly and looks over at the table, staring somewhat absently for a few seconds before wetting her lips and bringing a hand up to rub against her forehead. "If he honestly died and you lot snuck him out while I was out—"

"No, no." I say quickly, a voice in my head shouting at me to leave it at that, and yet.. "We don't know _where_ he is." I shut my eyes and hang my head. As if that was so much better.

"Oh, well." She quietly utters, nodding. "No, no, you're right. That's more reassuring." I look up to see her brightening eyes fixating on Gale. "He was with you, yeah?" He's standing there in a frozen haze, as if he could bolt out the door any second. Something else, too. Something I saw earlier. I can't seem to place it. "The Doctor wandered off, didn't he?" She breaks her stare and looks casually at me, blinking lightly as her voice became quiet and breathless. "He does it a lot… Wanders off…. '_Back in a mo'…. _Gets himself in trouble. ..He's..He's such an idiot. That's what happened, yeah?"

Before I can even think, I'm taking a step in front of Gale. "Yeah." I nod. "That's what happened."

A few long seconds pass, and she's not taken her eyes from mine and I feel a little of what Gale projected only thirty seconds ago. The way she stares. The way it uneases me. She always makes a crack joke and smiles, but here she's looking into my depths and I just know she could take out what she needs. All it reminds me of is how great a tribute she would make. Throw her in the arena and she could cut someone at the knees before they could even understand what was happening. I swallow suddenly and look away from her gaze, glad that she follows and glances back to the table. I keep my eyes loosely to the floor, watching as she takes a step towards it and her eyebrows furrow, with her fingertips hovering over the wood of the table. I catch her circling a finger around a particular blood stain. She exhales a strained breath.

"He's dead, isn't he?"


End file.
